A day after the destructive dust storm damaged the electricity transmission network of the Capital, the power supply to some parts of the Capital was yet to be restored.
Worst affected has been West Delhi, which will face load shedding of around 4– 5 hours for the next 2-3 days. The affected areas include Palam, Dwarka, Tilak Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Uttam Nagar, Vikaspuri and Janakpuri.
Power supply was snapped for up to 17 hours on Friday when storm struck the city because of the large scale disruption of power in large parts of the national capital.
Power department officials told The Hindu that loadshedding in West Delhi and other parts of the city is largely because of the damages to the major 220kV transmission line from Bamnauli to Papankallan I Grid, which supplies power to South-West Delhi. Four towers of the grid sufferred extensive damage during the storm on Friday.
“Even with emergency measures it it likely that the restoration of the line will take upto three days as we are given to understand by Delhi Transco Limited,” said the official.
“In the meantime, the discom which supplies power in that area BSES Rajdhani is trying to provide supply of the restricted power available to it by restoring to rotationally shedding in certain parts of West Delhi and provide to other parts to the extent possible. However, we are attempting to provide uninterrupted power supply for essential services like water treatments plants,” added the official.
A load shedding schedule has been uploaded on the discom website.
On account of the loadshedding the discom has had to make temporary changes to its network in order to enable its consumers in these areas to avail of the necessary day to day requirement like water.
“Consumers are therefore requested to use the available power supply judiciously in order to avoid over loading of the network, which may cause disruptions and further increase the outages,” said a BSES Rajdhani spokesperson.
During the powerful storm total ten towers of three 220 KV transmission lines were affected due to damage to the towers. These lines were Mandola - Gopalpur Line, Bawana – Rohini Line and Bamnauli -Pappankalan-I Line.
The Mandola-Gopalpur Line, where one tower had collapsed, is expected to be normalised by Sunday evening with the help of Emergency Restoration System. In Emergency Restoration System, a mobile tower is put into use till the original tower is re-erected.
“ Since it will take time to fully restore these line, efforts are being made to supply power through other alternate routes. Discoms have been advised to judiciously rotate load shedding if required to do so. Principal Secretary (Power) has directed the Discoms that they should resort to rotationally load shedding till these lines are restored completely.
A powerful dust storm had struck the city on Friday throwing normal life out of gear, severely damaging the entire power transmission network in Delhi and neighbouring states. At least nine people were killed in the NCR region, including six in Delhi, in incidents of falling trees, collapse of walls and electrocution.
