In blazing heat, Delhiites left power-less for hours

NEW DELHI: As if the scorching heat was not enough, residents across the city had to spend hours without electricity on Saturday evening and all of Sunday. Many parts of east and north Delhi faced outages of several hours due to snags, while intermittent power cuts in south and west Delhi made the weekend unbearable. Some of the faults have not been rectified yet, which could mean more outages.
People said they were restless as couldn't step out in the heat or stay put at their homes without electricity. "Uttam Nagar, Patel Nagar, Janakpuri, Karol Bagh, Moti Nagar, Seemapuri, Chhatarpur and several other areas have been reeling under outages. It has become impossible to live indoors. The power cuts have ranged from three to five hours. Some areas of south Delhi have had erratic supply," said Atul Goyal of URJA, a network of resident welfare associations.
Patparganj was in dark for more than three hours on Saturday night followed by an hourlong cut on Sunday morning. Mayur Vihar Phase I also faced outages for a couple of hours on Saturday night and again on Sunday morning. This could be attributed to a snag around 4.30pm at Delhi Transco's 220kV Patparganj grid, which caused outages in areas like Lakshmi Nagar, Preet Vihar, Patparganj and Mayur Vihar Phase I. A cable of the Badarpur-Ghazipur transmission line also snapped on Saturday, reducing 120MW of supply to BYPL areas, where load shedding was carried out in Kundli, Mayur Vihar Phase I and II, Dallupura and surrounding areas. Sources said this snag has not been repaired yet. Areas under Tata Power Delhi, especially north Delhi, experienced power cuts for a couple of hours on Saturday night.
The long outages after the storm on May 30 are due to "system overloading and constraints, mainly due to the damage caused to three main 220kV transmission lines of Delhi Transco on May 30". The 220kV Mandodla-Gopalpur and Bamnauli-Pappankalan I lines have been restored through the emergency restoration system (ERS). Temporary restoration of the 220kV Bawana-Rohini-I line has been carried out successfully," said a statement from LG's office.
The statement added that the transmission system of Delhi Transco, which was already overstretched, has become vulnerable due to the overloading of the temporary arrangements. This was accentuated by the breakdown of the 220kV Badarpur-Noida-Ghazipur line of UP Transmission Company Limited on June 7. Arrangements are being made with the UP government to restore it at the earliest.
"There was no power on Saturday night for over two hours and for some time in the morning," said Mrityunjay Chatterjee, a CR Park resident. Munirka too faced outages. "When I came back from work around 10pm, there was no power. After a tiring day, I couldn't get a proper sleep," said Malini, a private executive.
Rohini too was not spared. "Since the duststorm, the power situation has been bad. We had intermittent cuts on Saturday but not so much on Sunday. Even the helplines were not working and there was no response on other numbers. People stayed awake as there was a power cut from 6pm to 4am," said Sanjeev Kumar of Rohini RWA.

Citizens are now losing patience. "We had thought we won't need an inverter this year. Last year when the tariff went up, they had said it was because they were procuring 6,000MW. On Saturday, I saw that the peak demand was 5,300MW. Why are we still having power cuts then?" said Rajiv Kakaria, member of GK 1 RWA. There was an acute water shortage in Greater Kailash and many other parts of south Delhi on Saturday and Sunday.