M A I N   N E W S

Grid snag plunges region into darkness
Tribune Reporters

Chandigarh, December 23
Several parts of Haryana, Punjab and other states falling in the northern power grid were plunged into darkness in the early hours of today following a major snag in the transmission system, which tripped a large number of power-generating projects.

Though power was partly restored after about six hours of the grid developing the snag at 4 a.m., the situation is likely to be normal only late in the night, according to Mrs Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry, chairperson of the Haryana Power Utilities.

Several trains running on electricity were delayed as a result of the power failure. Water supply was badly affected.

According to informed sources, the snag first developed in the 400 kv Bavana-Dadri transmission line of the power grid around 4 a.m. The snag, the sources say, developed because of fog formation and delayed winter rain. Due to fog, the sources say, the dust on the transmission line turns into a paste, which affects the insulators. Had winter rain preceded the fog, these would have washed the dust on the line. The sources say it is not humanly possible to wash the lines manually.

Once the power grid line developed the fault, the voltage and power frequency of the northern grid suddenly shot up, resulting in the tripping of various generation projects. The grid had similarly failed last year also.

Railway sources say the trains which were delayed included Jhelum Express, Shatabdi Express trains running between Kalka and Delhi as well as between Delhi and Amritsar; Nangal Dam Express, Shalimar Express, Himgiri Express, Sialdah Express and the Howrah-Kalka mail. Even trains with diesel locomotives were delayed because the signal system also stopped functioning.

The sources say to meet the emergency situation, the BBMB, which was running six turbines these days at Bhakra, has made additional machines functional till various states are able to bring their plants back on steam.

In Haryana, the Faridabad plant was not affected. In the Panipat thermal project, three units, No. 4, 5 and 6, had become operational by the evening. The sources say while the power supply to the domestic sector in the urban areas had been restored before the evening, a cut was imposed on the industrial sector, which would continue till normalcy was restored.

ROPAR: All machines of the Bhakra, Ganguwal, Kotla, Nakian and Ropar Thermal power plants became non-functional at 4-45 a.m. today.

The turbines at Bhakra were made operational just 11 minutes after the grid failure.

At the Ropar thermal plant, all machines could be made functional only in the afternoon. No damage was, however, reported in the turbines of any power plant in Ropar district.

PATIALA: The PSEB started restoring power in the state independently of the grid at 6-40 a.m. when it started the Shanan project at Joginder Nagar. Sources in the board said following this the Ranjit Sagar project was started at 7-50a.m. and the Mukerian, Anandpur Sahib and UBDC hydel projects became operational by 8.40 a.m.

The sources said the board started lighting up its thermal plants after the hydel projects became operational and had currently lit up eight units out of which seven were functioning. The board started slowly in the morning, first lighting up one unit in Bathinda, Ropar and Lehra Mohabbat.