Delhi govt claims power crisis over

Thermal generation finally picked up in New Delhi and the Northern Grid became more stable as compared to previous days.

Though two to three hour power cuts were still reported from all across the city, power department officials said power supply position and availability has improved significantly and within a few days, all outages problems would be over.

“The power situation is much better now as thermal power plants of NTPC have started functioning and the frequency of Northern Grid is also in the normal range, resulting in Delhi being able to draw more than 2000 Mw from the central pool as against the 2317Mw capacity allocated to the Capital,” said a senior government official.

Officials said the situation has improved mainly due to an increase in supply of power to the city by NTPC’s generation stations in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. During a power review meeting at the secretariat, power minister Haroon Yusuf said that Dadri, Singrauli anad Rihand power plants of NTPC have already started functioning properly while the 750-MW Badarpur power station would also be completely functional within a week as the maintenance work is still in progress.

Despite these claims, south Delhi discom BSES Rajdhani sounded an alarm, predicting more power cuts in the days to come until the coal crisis is completely resolved. In a statement, the discom said: “Many parts of the country are facing power shortages on account of reduced power generation in many thermal and hydro plants. As a result, many states including Delhi, continue to receive reduced power supply. The situation is likely to improve over the next few days; howeverduring the interim period, to the extent of the shortfall, the Delhi discoms, including BSES Rajdhani will be constrained to undertake load shedding on a rotational.”

Areas which could witness loadshedding in south and west Delhi areas on Friday are Alaknanda, Greater Kailash, Nehru Place, Nizamuddin, Defence Colony , Nehru Place, Sarita Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Saket, Hauz Khas, Lajpat Nagar, R K Puram Jaffarpur, Mundka, Punjabi Bagh and Janakpuri among others.