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Minister takes steps to resolve power crisis; seeks 15 days for normalcy
Cong holds BJP responsible
APP holds protest outside Vardhan’s house
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BJP MLA seeks LG's intervention for adequate power supply
Delhi Police studies Surat's CCTV camera system
Flood control measures reviewed
Kids escape fire at playschool
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Minister takes steps to resolve power crisis; seeks 15 days for normalcy
New Delhi, June 10 He assured that with emergency restoration work underway, the power supply in the national Capital would normalise in two weeks, as outages continued amid severe heat wave conditions. Goyal held an emergency meeting with Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and top officials to discuss the steps to be taken to tackle the power crisis. "The grid is outdated," he said at a press conference after the meeting, adding that "inadequate" transmission lines meant Delhi could absorb 400 MW of power on top of its existing 5,300 MW, falling short of current peak demand of 5,800 MW. "Clearly the power grid as it stands today is outdated, needs augmentation and modernisation and may repeatedly have outages and tripping problems," he said. Goyal also blamed the previous Congress government for the current crisis. "Policy paralysis and poor execution by previous government is responsible for power crisis in the capital." However, the minister assured that the problem will be resolved in 15 days. "It normally takes three months to restore lines after the damage we saw. We will work 24x7 and get them up in two weeks." But, he added, the internal deadline for officials is 10 days. Goyal, who met Gujarat Energy Minister Saurabh Patel, tweeted, "My 3 (power, coal and renewable energy) ministries learned a lot about the power issues faced by the states and will address all such policy issues on a fast-track basis." Taking a leaf out of the Gujarat state's Jyotigram Yojana, which aims at providing 24x7 electricity to all villages in the state, Goyal said his ministry's dream is to provide power to every household in India. "We also understood the yojana in great detail and will leave no stone unturned for our dream of 24x7 power, pan India in every home," he tweeted. The capital's power supply was disrupted following a severe storm last month which caused many lines of the Northern Grid to trip. "Power companies have already taken steps to restore these lines within two weeks latest," the minister said. Goyal also said that a gas-fired power generation plant at Bawana in West Delhi has a capacity of producing 1,500 MW of electricity, but was producing only 290 MW. He said extra gas will be provided to the Bawana plant from NTPC for production of 400 MW of power that Delhi needs. Additional power of 400 MW from Bawana is expected to start flowing from tonight itself. Besides, he has also given orders to BHEL to commission the unit of Pragati Gas Based Plant urgently, which is under repair. The Delhi government was also directed to effectively monitor the implementation of eight sub-stations and seven transmission lines which are under execution by them. These will provide further reliability to power supply. Discoms have committed to make every effort to stick to planned outages. Apart from this, other critical and important lines were also reviewed. Maharani Bagh-Ghazipur line has been directed to be completed in one week's time with the help of PGCIL. The DMRC was asked to assist DTL to repair the Maharani Bagh-Trauma Centre line within one week. Similarly, 400kV Dadri-Loni-Harsh Vihar line will be completed in two weeks. This is likely to give relief to East Delhi when the peak load increases. A 100 MVA transformer at Masjid Moth is being repaired urgently to give relief to South Delhi. It was also directed that the fault of Badarpur-Noida-Ghazipur line should also be corrected at the earliest. Goyal said the government was trying to find a long-term solution so that these problems do not crop up in the capital next summer.
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Cong holds BJP responsible
New Delhi, June 10 In a counter attack, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said it was the responsibility of the NDA government and Goyal to resolve the power crisis as the city was under Central rule and claimed that the Dikshit government had ensured round-the-clock electricity supply. "Goyal cannot run away from his responsibilities by blaming the Sheila Dikshit government. Our government had managed the power sector efficiently. We brought reform into the power sector. Instead of addressing the crisis, Goyal has targeted us," Lovely said in a press conference. Areas across the city have been facing blackouts of up to six hours. Delhi Transco Ltd, a Delhi government utility, is yet to repair all the transmission lines damaged by the devastating storm that hit the city 11 days ago. Earlier, after a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, Goyal said that there was no policy initiative in the past 10-12 years to modernise power transmission network due which the city has been reeling under outages. "Delhi is under the Central rule and the LG is the representative of the Centre. So, it is primary responsibility of the Narendra Modi government to ensure power supply in Delhi. Instead of doing that, they are attacking the Congress," Lovely said. "When the Congress was in power, it ensured better power supply for Delhiites following which several awards were given to the then Delhi government. The Union Power Minister is saying that they do not have sufficient infrastructure to improve power supply, but I want to tell him that without having this infrastructure, the Congress had ensured a 24-hour power supply in the national Capital," he said. The DPCC chief also attacked AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal saying the situation deteriorated as the AAP government did not prepare a summer action plan to meet the growing power demand in the city. "The LG and the Centre is running the affairs of Delhi. Despite the surplus electricity of Delhi the transmission is not perfect. The Congress was in power for 15 years and the BJP was principal opposition party. None during past 15 years spoke for infrastructure expenditure in electricity," said Prof Dinesh Varshney, Assistant Secretary, Delhi unit. The CPI demand immediate restoration of electricity 24 hours. "Immediate inquiry be ordered to punish those who are responsible. The CAG audit must come out immediately with its report so that people of Delhi should come to know the real truth about all aspects of electricity of Delhi," he said.
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APP holds protest outside Vardhan’s house
New Delhi, June 10 The AAP said mere statements at this juncture will not be enough since the public’s patience is fast running out and surprise checks should be carried out at complaint centres of discoms to ensure that these centres are working 24x7 and complaints of the people are being addressed at the earliest. "The BJP neither able to handle power crisis nor forming government. And not even allowing elections in Delhi. It is completely irresponsible," tweeted Arvind Kejriwal. Noting that the BJP Central government cannot escape onus by blaming the former Congress regime led by Sheila Dikshit in Delhi for allegedly being hand in glove with the discoms, the party asked why are Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and the city administration shying away from taking strict action against the discoms for transmission and distribution problems? With reports of union power minister citing transmission and distribution problems for unending power cuts, AAP leaders questioned why did it take so long to assess the situation. They demanded that in case of any power cut, the public must be informed at least 24 hours in advance instead of the power discoms giving details about the power cuts at 8 am every day. "It is shocking that it took the Central government more than 10 days to wake up after a thunderstorm had hit the national Capital, which is now being described as the major reason behind the destruction of electricity transmission lines, leading to long power cuts. If such is the state of affairs of the emergency preparedness in the national Capital, then the situation in other parts of the country can be well imagined," stated the party leaders. "The BJP is in power at the Centre and it is the responsibility of the ruling party to facilitate basic amenities to the people in the city as Delhi is currently under Central rule. It has failed to control the ongoing electricity crisis," said AAP leader Manish Sisodia, who led the AAP MLAs who handed a memorandum to the personal staff of Dr Vardhan. Dr Vardhan later rejected the criticism, retorting that both the Congress and the AAP should share the responsibility for the power situation in the city.
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BJP MLA seeks LG's intervention for adequate power supply
New Delhi, June 10 The MLA said that there was an acute shortage of power in Delhi. But West Delhi is the worst sufferer as two power towers, Bamnauli - Pappan Kallan and Rohini-Bawana were damaged in the dust storm. These towers have yet not been repaired due to lethargic attitude of Delhi Transco Limited. Mukhi appealed to the LG to intervene in to get repaired the damaged towers. Amarjit Singh from Tilak Vihar said that everyday three-four times power cuts happened and once or twice during the night making the life hell. "We have made complaints to the local office of power department, but they do not pay heed to it", he said.
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Delhi Police studies Surat's CCTV camera system
New Delhi, June 10 The team is headed by the Special Commissioner of Police (Operations), S Sundari Nanda and includes the technical team of Deputy Commissioner of Police (Communication), Naved Mumtaz, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Communication), Satyawan Gautam and other officers. "Studying the sustainable practices in place at Surat (Gujarat) would help more public participation in the endeavour of making Delhi safer," said a senior Delhi Police officer. Currently, the CCTV network in Delhi is only funded by the government. On the other hand, in 2010, a few industrialists and businessmen had proposed a plan to setup a CCTV camera system in Surat to protect the business activity in the city and prevent 26/11 type attacks. The proposal was submitted to the Surat Police. The Surat Police improved upon the plan and floated the tenders. A consortium consisting of Surat-based Innovative Telecom and Software Private Limited and Canada-based Verint Systems bagged the contract. The CCTV camera system in Surat is planned to have 5,000 CCTV cameras that will be connected to the headquarters of the Surat Police, which will help in checking crime and improving management of vehicular traffic. The project is called "Safe City Surat" of the Surat Police and was launched in January last year, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the then Gujarat Chief Minister.
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Flood control measures reviewed
New Delhi, June 10 Vulnerable locations have been identified across the city and special action plan has been made to prevent water-logging at each such location. According to the plan, each department will have its separate control room which will be made operational from June 15 to October 15 in the office of District Magistrate (East) in constant monitoring of liaison officers from 12 departments concerned to receive complaints. A sector committee has been constituted in each district, headed by the District Magistrate which will promptly deal with problem arising out of flood and drainage congestion. The Revenue Department in case of any flood situation will establish relief camps and will organize safe evacuation of people from low lying areas to the relief camps and will arrange distribution of relief supplies. Arun Baroka, Secretary (PWD), informed the Committee that the PWD has 971 roads with road length of 1,206 Km. "Ninety four per cent of the desilting work has been completed, so far, and the remaining work is being done expeditiously. Debris from various sites is also being removed regularly and the PWD has deployed 68 mobile maintenance vans for regular monitoring and day-to-day maintenance," informed Baroka. Giving details, he said, 533 pumps are ready and will be deployed at various vulnerable points apart from 70 DG sets that will be deployed to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the pumps.
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Kids escape fire at playschool
New Delhi, June 10 "The fire started at the electronic store. Office furniture, records and computers were gutted in the fire. However, no causalities were reported. "The flames soon spread to a nearby playschool but thankfully around 40 children had left the facility around at 12.30 pm," said a fire official. The children had come to participate at a summer camp at "Natkhat" playschool where the incident took place. Some teachers, some students were rescued by locals and firefighters. Fourteen fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was completely doused by 4 pm. The police said the fire broke out after an AC in the store caught fire. — PTI
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Reviewing the deepening power crisis in Delhi over the past two days, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal today ordered all agencies involved to take up the issue seriously and bring back normalcy in the capital.
