Worst power crisis hits 60 crore people in 21 states
New Delhi: In the worst ever power crisis, over half of the country’s population in 21 states went without electricity for several hours on Tueday as three major transmission grids failed, bringing northern, eastern and north-eastern regions to a grinding halt.
The massive failure came less than 24 hours after the Northern Grid collapsed and was revived yesterday.
On Tuesday, the worst sufferers were 265 miners who got trapped in coal mines in West Bengal and Jharkhand due to power outage. They were evacuated after hours of agony.
In the national capital, thousands of Metro commuters had a harrowing time when the trains stopped inside the tunnels as transmission lines tripped at 1 pm.
Railway services too were hit, with 300 trains getting disrupted in seven zones in 10 states.
In the national capital, the power collapse triggered disruption in Metro and train services, crippled water supply and choked roads due to non-functional traffic lights.
For the first time, the three inter-state transmission networks — Northern Grid, Eastern Grid and North-Eastern Grid — tripped together. While no official reason was given for the failure, sources said the trouble started in the eastern grid.
In its latest update at 8.30 PM, the Power Grid said, the North-Eastern has been completely restored. While electricity has been fully restored in Delhi, 70 per cent normalcy has been achieved in the northern region so far. However, half of eastern India still remains in dark.
“Power supply has been extended to all the affected states,” it said.
The states affected included Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and Assam. Besides 21 states, Union Territory of Chandigarh was also affected.
Meanwhile, a PTI report from Guwahati said power supply in Assam was affected after the regional grid tripped due to heavy load following the collapse of Northern and Eastern grids.
“All of a sudden, there was heavy load and power frequency came down from the normal 49.9 per cent to 38.34 per cent leading to the collapse of the grid,” Assam State Load Despatch Centre (ASLDC) Executive Engineer Ashok Saikia told PTI.
The collapse led to large-scale power cuts throughout the state but the situation is likely to improve with additional power inputs from Samaguri, Kathalguri and Namrup Thermal Power Plants which has so far been unaffected by the grid failure, he said.
“We have already restored power in some areas of Guwahati and in the state by offloading power in certain areas,” Saikia added. We hope to resolve the problem soon, the official said. (PTI)