The Hindu : Capital's power situation deteriorates again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 05, 2003

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Capital's power situation deteriorates again

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JULY 4. The Capital's power situation seems to have deteriorated again, even as privatisation of the electricity distribution system entered its second year on July 1. Peak load-shedding crossed 200 MW and the maximum demand of power met was as high as 3,284 MW.

Although the current crisis is not of the kind experienced during the first fortnight of last July immediately after the private discoms took over, the duration of unscheduled power cuts is increasing all over the city with every passing day. Notably, it is not because of any shortfall in supply but mainly due to large-scale local faults, which the discoms have failed miserably to restore in time.

The worse hit this time have been areas in South and North Delhi and parts of East Delhi. "This month it is very bad. Yesterday we had no electricity for more than six hours. When we called up the complaint centre, we were informed that it would be restored in the next one hour. When it was finally restored, it again went off three hours later,'' complained Rakesh Tyagi, a resident of Duggal Colony in South Delhi, today.

``We have experienced a relatively better power situation this past year. But yesterday was worse. There was no electricity from 12-45 to 6 in the evening. It again went off repeatedly at night and today also though for a shorter duration,'' said N. S. Kapoor, a resident of K U Block in Pitampura.

``The discoms are testing our patience. For the past one week we have been experiencing load-shedding almost every night. Even this is not enough as we do not have electricity for hours even during daytime. To top it all is the rude behaviour of those manning the complaint centres. They rarely pick up the phone, and when they finally do they provide us misleading information,'' rued S.K. Sethi of Hari Nagar.

In the Paschim Vihar area of West Delhi, residents complained that they have been experiencing power cuts for more than seven-eight hours every night. "We have not had proper sleep for the past several days now,'' said Anil Khullar, an aggrieved resident of Paschim Vihar. ``We are totally disturbed. It would have been better, if we were told there would be no electricity throughout the night. It comes and goes every alternate hour. There has been no proper reply from the complaint centre,'' rued Deepa, a working woman who stays in Prasad Nagar. Similarly, in R.K. Puram, supply of power was erratic and load-shedding was resorted to several times today. The Call Centre said it was because of ''local power faults''.

Discom officials, on the other hand, said the residents tended to exaggerate their woes. "If it is for an hour, residents would lodge a complaint for at least four hours,'' a senior BSES official said. Conceding that the number of faults have been on the increase in the past few days, the official said the situation was under control and was much better than last year.

Delhi Transco officials said load-shedding for the major part of the day was more than 100 MW and the maximum of 203 MW was at 5 in the morning. The demand met was also more than 3,000 MW most of the day and the maximum was 3,284 MW at 3 p.m. when the load-shedding was 101 MW, the official said, adding: "If there was any major problem in any part of the Capital, this was mainly due to local faults.''

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