Home

Follow Countercurrents on Twitter 

Google+ 

Support Us

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

CC Videos

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

WSF

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About Us

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Search Our Archive

 



Our Site

Web

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name: E-mail:

 

Printer Friendly Version

Mass Blackout Strikes India For Second Day

By Al Jazeera

31 July, 2012
Al Jazeera

A massive power cut has hit a huge swathe of India for the second day in the row, as the country's northern and eastern power grids have collapsed, officials say.

The blackout affects about half of India's population, and knocked out power to more than a dozen states that are home to more people than live in the entire European Union.

The blackout comes a day after a mass outage left eight states without power for much of the day.

Shailendre Dubey, an official at the Uttar Pradesh Power Corp, says the northern grid collapsed at about 1:05pm (07:35 GMT) on Tuesday.

VK Agrawal, the general manager of the grid, confirmed the outage.

"We are busy with the revival right now... Both the northern and eastern grids have collapsed. Please allow us to address the problem," Agrawal told AFP.

Al Jazeera's Nilanjan Chowdhury in New Delhi reported that the outage has knocked out the capital's subway system, as well as its traffic lights. Traffic policemen were filling in, but the blackout had resulted in widespread traffic jams.

"The reason is the same [as for Monday's outage]: apparently there was overloading of the grid, and this has happened at a location about 100km from Delhi, in Agra."

Chowdhury said that outages then spread as demand collapsed the Northern and Eastern grids.

He also said that while power remains out in the business centres, the VIP areas that house ministers are now receiving power.

About 400 trains were affected by the power outage, a spokesman for the railways told AFP.

SK Mohanty, a power official in the eastern state of Orissa, confirmed that the eastern grid had also been knocked out. He said the fault could take several hours to resolve.

Power was also cut in the main eastern city of Kolkata, and in most parts of West Bengal state, a local official said.

The eastern grid covers five states, including West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Sikkim and Orissa.

RN Rayak, the chairman of the Power Grid Corporation of India, told reporters at a press conference late on Tuesday afternoon that he expected power to be restored to all areas by 7:00pm local time (13:30 GMT).

Trapped miners

Hundreds of coal miners, meanwhile, were trapped in West Bengal because the power cut left them unable to operate their lifts.

"We are trying to rescue the coal miners. All efforts are on to resume power supplies. You need power supplies to run the lifts in the underground mines," Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, told reporters in the state capital Kolkata.

She said that hundreds of miners were trapped in Burdwan, about 180km northwest of Kolkata.

"Over 200 miners are stuck in several coal mines. They cannot come out till the power service is restored," Niladri Roy, general manager at Eastern Coalfields in Kolkata, told AFP.

Roy said that the miners were "in no danger", as they were in a well-ventilated area.

Earlier outage

Sushilkumar Shinde, the federal power minister, blamed Tuesday's outage on states drawing more than their allotted share of electricity.

"Everyone overdraws from the grid. Just this morning I held a meeting with power officials from the states and I gave directions that states that overdraw should be punished. We have given instructions that their power supply could be cut,'' he told reporters.

On Monday, the northern grid collapsed for six hours shortly after 2:00am (20:30 GMT Sunday), causing travel chaos and widespread inconvenience in nine states and the capital New Delhi.

Major hospitals and airports in the region were able to function normally on emergency back-up power on both days, but train services were severely disrupted.

Industrial lobby groups say the power outages underline the government's inability to address India's acute electricity shortfall.

"The increasing gap between electricity supply and demand has long been a matter of concern," said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The CII, Banerjee said, has "consistently highlighted" the need for urgent steps to improve supplies of coal to thermal power plants and reforming state distribution utilities.

"This latest outage is just an urgent reminder for addressing these issues as a priority," he added.

India's demand for electricity has soared along with its economy in recent years, but it has been unable to meet growing energy needs.

The Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of more than eight per cent in recent months.

The power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off.

Even connection to the grid, however, remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's households do not have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census




 

 


Comments are moderated