M A I N   N E W S

Day 2: India gasps for power
* 3 out of 5 grids collapse
* Blackout in 21 states, UTs
* 64 crore people hit
Girja Shankar Kaura/TNS

A notice pasted outside a Metro station in Delhi. PTI

New Delhi, July 31
Even before North India could recover from yesterday’s crippling power failure, the northern grid tripped again this afternoon, taking with it the eastern and the north-eastern grids. The result: Half of the country and over 64 crore people went without power for hours.

Twenty states that account for more than half of the country’s population were left powerless after the northern grid tripped again in the afternoon, apparently due to overdrawing of electricity by Uttar Pradesh again. The cascading effect this time was much bigger as the eastern and the north-eastern grids also tripped in quick succession due to overloading.

The states affected today were Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

The massive outage came just hours after North India recovered from a blackout yesterday when the northern power grid collapsed, pushing seven states and Delhi into darkness.

All major services, including rail, water supply and emergency services at hospitals, were affected across all the states hit by the power failure, which is said to be the world’s one of the biggest power failures.

The power failure left lakhs of train passengers stranded all across the country and miners trapped in the mines in West Bengal. Over 300 trains across the country came to a standstill. With restoration work on, there was some semblance of order around the country by 6 pm, but complete normalcy across the affected states came only by late in the night.

The crisis was allegedly triggered after four states, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, drew much more than their assigned share of power. But the fault lay majorly at the doorstep of Uttar Pradesh, which, despite repeated warnings, has been continuing to overdraw electricity.

The supply to Delhi at 1.30 pm was reduced to an all-time low of 40 MW against its demand of 4,000 MW. The Metro stopped running; passengers were seen walking on the tracks to reach the nearest platform. In Kolkata, the Metro was not hit by the outage, but West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked all government offices to shut early, and urged the private sector and schools to do the same to protect against commuter chaos in the evening.

“Northern and eastern grid failure has affected railway operations across six of our railway zones. Over 300 passenger trains are stuck,” said Anil Saxena, Additional Director General for Public Relations in the Railway Ministry. The Delhi Metro suspended service on all six lines as power tripped for the second straight day. It normally operates over 2,700 trips a day, covering around 70,000 km, to carry around 1.8 million passengers on a week day. Talking about the crisis, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited Chairman RK Nayak said the problem was difficult to be located as it was a complex network.

300 TRAINS HIT

Over 300 trains came to a standstill across the country due to the power failure. This left lakhs of train passengers stranded across the country

TUESDAY TROUBLE

The crisis was allegedly triggered after four states, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, drew much more than their assigned share of power. The fault lay majorly with Uttar Pradesh, which, despite repeated warnings, has been continuing to overdraw power

STATES warned

The Power Ministry on Tuesday gave a stern warning to states using more power than their assigned share. The offending states have been warned and we will punish those continuing with the practice of overdrawing, said ministry officials.