Photographs: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
The massive failure came less than 24 hours after the Northern Grid collapsed and was revived on Monday.
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India's worst power crisis; 21 states, 60 crore people hit
Image: A passenger looks through the window of a train as he waits for electricity to be restored at a railway station in New DelhiPhotographs: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
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.
India's worst power crisis; 21 states, 60 crore people hit
Image: Muslim girls study in the light of candles inside a madrasa or religious school during power-cut in Noida on the outskirts of New DelhiPhotographs: Parivartan Sharma/Reuters
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.
India's worst power crisis; 21 states, 60 crore people hit
Image: A passenger rests on sacks lying on the platform next to a train as he waits for electricity to be restored at a railway station in New DelhiPhotographs: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
The grid failure and the chaos followed on a day when, in a Cabinet reshuffle, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde was moved to the home ministry and Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily was given the additional charge of power.
India's worst power crisis; 21 states, 60 crore people hit
Image: An officer reads documents with the help of a torch at the driving registration and license authority office during a power-cut in ChandigarhThe states affected included Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and Assam. Besides 21 states, Union Territory of Chandigarh was also affected.
Shinde said some states were overdrawing power."I was told (by officials) that about 3,000 MW extra power has been over drawn from the Eastern Grid. We have given the direction to either stop it (overdrawal) or we will take action against them," he said.The Punjab government denied the state's overdrawal from the Northern Grid. It said the state's overdrawal was a meagre 1.2 per cent of its sanctioned load when the grid collapsed, while Haryana's overdrawal was a whopping 22.4 per cent and that of Uttar Pradesh was 6.4 per cent.
The UP government said taking into consideration the parameters at the time of grid failure there was no reason to believe power operations by the state triggered the grid collapse. The denials came after Delhi accused UP, Haryana and Punjab of overdrawing power from the Northern Grid.
Meanwhile, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Centre should evolve a system to ensure that no state received more than their quota of electricity for them.
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