Powerless festive season

The festival season has been marred by a spate of power cuts in the city. As the situation stands, the present power crisis in the city is unlikely to improve in the coming few days. The power department officials said that load-shedding will continue till the supply of coal is resumed.

“Due to shortage of coal, the National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC)’s power plants at Dadri I, II, Singrauli, Rihand–II, Farakka and Kahalgaon I and II have been generating and supplying significantly less power than their installed capacities. Mining and loading of coal has been badly affected due to heavy rains as well as the ongoing festival season in the mining areas in the east,” said a senior power department official.

Clubbed with these is the shortage of water due to a temporary closure of the Agra canal. Water is required to cool the power plants.

Water supply to Badarpur Thermal Power Station (BTPS) has been reduced further, compounding the issue and further reducing the power supply by around 100 MW.

“Power generating stations within Delhi including BTPS, Gas Turbine and Rajghat were producing around 410 MW less; they normally supply around 1100 MW to Delhi,” added the official.

The power distribution companies have been carrying out load-shedding in many areas. In certain parts, the load-shedding lasts as long as four hours.

“Due to the extent of the shortfall, discoms have been carrying out load-shedding. Though being a Sunday, the load was comparatively less but the situation might be alarming on Monday,” added the official.

“For the first time, we had a candlelight dinner because the electricity was out for more than four hours. It returned briefly at 10pm but went off within 15 minutes,” said Namrata Bhardwaj, a resident of Mayur Vihar, Phase-1.

“The power situation has suddenly become more problematic now than during peak summer. It’s begun to hinder regular day-to-day activities because we find it difficult to even run the water pump since the electricity goes off at the time when the water supply starts,” said Aakriti Sethi, a Greater Kailash-I resident.