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Northern India goes without power

Delhi and the entire northern region have been without power since early Tuesday morning following the total collapse of the regional grid.

Even the prime minister's house and those of other VIPs and diplomats were not spared. All these areas, however, have been provided with alternative sources of power.

The PMO is reportedly upset with the Delhi Vidyut Board for the disruption of the power supply.

The problem, which broke out at the Panki substation in Uttar Pradesh, led to failure of the northern grid at 0430 hours (IST), Power Grid Corporation of India officials informed.

According to a DVB source, this led to the tripping of the two major power plants in the capital - Indraprastha and the Badarpur power plant.

Water supply to the capital's residents has been affected due to the power failure.

Bhanu Bhushan, Director (Operations), PGCI, said engineers were at work to correct the fault. Normalcy was expected to be restored later in the day.

Several states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir were also plunged into darkness.

A spokesperson of the northern grid control room said train services on the electrified sections in the Delhi-Howrah grand trunk section were halted for about five hours.

The tripping has been attributed to low frequency in the wake of high power demand.

The spokesperson said power supply to the railway traction was restored at around 0900 hrs, adding that the situation was likely to improve by the afternoon.

For 20 minutes, the entire national capital including VVIP areas like Rashtrapati Bhavan, the prime minister's residence, and North and South blocks went without power supply.

However, the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the prime minister's residence have back-up systems (like alternators) to meet such situations.

In New Delhi, power secretary A K Basu said, ''We are not going to blame anybody for the system failure. Right now, our target is to restore the entire grid which has collapsed, and work is going on at a war footing at the Northern Region Load Dispatch Centre."

''Since we have not been able to fully restore the Emergency Restoration System, only VVIP areas and parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan were restored. Power in the other areas will be restored by Tuesday evening,'' he added.

The managing director of the Kanpur Electric Supply Company Vishnu Avtar Chaturvedi told UNI that the tripping enveloped the entire state in darkness, besides disrupting train services.

Partial power supply to Kanpur and other towns was expected by Tuesday afternoon.

A railway spokesman said a number of long-distance trains including the Delhi-Allahabad Prayagraj Express, Unchahar Express and the Allahabad-Meerut Sangam Express were stranded for more than four hours at various points due to the power outage.

Chairman and managing director of Power Grid Corporation of India R P Singh said in New Delhi that due to a fault in the Bhakra Beas Management Board, restoration of power supply would take some more time.

''We were trying to restore power through ERS, which involves emergency by-pass of the BBMB system. But, there seems to be some fault at the BBMB level also. So restoration will take some more time,'' he added.

Singh also ruled out the possibility of sabotage.

With inputs from agencies

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