Northern, North Eastern and Eastern power grids collapsed this afternoon triggering a major power crisis in more than 20 states and Union Territories.
Essential services and public transport systems including Railways and Delhi Metro were also hit.300 trains came to a grinding halt at various places , with movement on the busy Delhi-Howrah route almost paralysed. Power Minister Sushil kumar Shinde blamed that overdrawal of power by certain states is responsible for the crisis.
Talking to reporters in New Delhi this evening, Power Grid CMD R N Nayak said that power will return to normal by 7.30 pm.He said that substantial power recovery has been made and rail,metro,hospitals and airport are being supplied power on priority basis.He said 15 to 17 per cent of power supply in north and 50 per cent in north east and 20 per cent in East India have been restored.
Entire National capital region went without power for the second successive day today as the Northern Grid tripped again, crippling various essential services such as Metro rail, trains and water distribution system in the city. Delhi's s lifeline Delhi Metro has , however, resumed partially.
An airport spokesperson said all essential services were shifted to the diesel generating back-up system. Traffic signals went blank in the city leading to traffic chaos in the
entire city.
AIR correspondent reports, India has five electricity grids — Northern, Eastern,North Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are inter-connected, except the Southern grid.All the grids are being run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation, which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines. One circuit km refers to one kilometre of electrical transmission line.
The northern grid covers nine regions — Punjab, Haryana,Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh. At least six states are covered by the eastern grid. They are West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Sikkim.Meanwhile, the north eastern grid connects Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
