Gautam Budh Nagar district plunges into darkness for an hour

NOIDA: In an incident that laid bare the fragile power infrastructure of Gautam Budh Nagar, the entire district including Noida and Greater Noida, was plunged into darkness for over an hour on Thursday night. The blackout resulted from a breakdown at the 400-kV Pali substation, the only nodal substation through which electricity is supplied and distributed in the district.
In the absence of an alternative nodal substation, the twin cities were enveloped in darkness over the next hour.The fault was fixed around 3:50am only after the intervention of the Northern Regional Power Committee (NRPC).
Power corporation officials informed that the breakdown had occurred at 2.45am on Thursday night due to high voltage of supply, which resulted in a 132-kV line supply failure at Pali. Officials said that NRPC - which handles the power system of eight north Indian states including UP - had to be summoned to regulate the voltage of electricity supplied to Pali.
"The fault was rectified at around 3.50am. Supply was immediately restored to Noida," said AP Singh, superintending engineer, UP Transco. The Greater Noida discom, Noida Power Company Limited (NPCL), informed that supply was restored to consumers in the city at around 4.15am. No large-scale outages were reported from the twin cities through Friday.
Meanwhile, UP Transco is compiling a report that would be sent to NRPC so that necessary action can be initiated to avoid similar breakdowns in the future. Officials said that punitive action and extreme caution is necessary to operate the Pali substation for the time that it continues to handle the entire load of electricity required for the district.
The transmission company further stated that work on two new 400-kV substations, located in Sectors 123 and 148, has commenced but it would take years for the projects to be completed.