The city on Monday reeled under severe electricity cuts due to continuing shortage to the tune of 1,000 mega watt from various power stations even as Delhi Government blamed Uttar Pradesh for making the situation “difficult” by overdrawing from the Northern Grid.
As areas across the city faced power cuts in the range of one to five hours, the Government made repeated pleas to state-run NTPC to ensure supply of full quota of power to Delhi while directing all discoms to try and procure power from the open market even at higher rates.
Continuing coal and water shortage in various power plants and a strike by a section of the Coal India employees have severely affected power generation at various plants of NTPC.
The Delhi Power Minister, Mr Harun Yusuf, said the situation had become more difficult for Delhi due to overdrawing of power in the range of 1,100-2,000 MW from Northern Grid by neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, which is forcing the city to resort to load-shedding to maintain frequency of the grid.
Penalty
“We don't know why UP is overdrawing so much power from the Northern Grid which is forcing us to resort to load-shedding. There is provision for hefty penalty for overdrawing power beyond the permissible level and I will write to Union Power Ministry to intervene,” Mr Yusuf said. He, however, said other States such as Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have not resorted to overdrawal from Northern Grid.
Mr Yusuf said he has spoken to CEOs of all three power distribution companies and directed them to arrange power from various sources. The Power Secretary, Mr Parimal Ray, spoke to the NTPC Chairman, Mr Arup Roy Choudhury, and requested him to ensure full quota of supply to Delhi.
Power department officials said overdrawing of power by UP led to dip in frequency in northern grid, forcing Delhi to resort to load-shedding.
Shortage of coal has affected generation of power in NTPC's Dadri, Singrauli (Madhya Pradesh), Farakka (West Bengal) and Kahalgaon (Bihar) power plants, resulting in cut in supply of power to Delhi.
Delhi quota
Delhi usually gets 1,400 MW from NTPC's Dadri plant but in the last four days the supply has been in the range of 300 to 800 MW. The power generation in the plants has been affected by shortage of coal. Coal supply has been hampered due to heavy rains in mining areas and the ongoing festival season in the eastern region.
The disruption in water supply from Agra canal to Delhi's gas turbine plant at Badarpur as well as cut in generation at Rajghat plant have also compounded the problem. The city got around 900 MW from these two plants against their full capacity of 1,400 MW.
The Power Secretary said National Hydro Power Corporation, which supplies around 355 MW daily to Delhi, has also cut down supply to 70 MW due to water shortage in their plants while supply fro Nuclear Power Corporation of India have come down to 88 MW from 110 MW.
He said that although there is a gap of 1,000 MW in demand and supply, still the impact would not have been too much had Uttar Pradesh not resorted to overdrawing.
He said the shuting down of a power plant in Andhra Pradesh due to Telengana agitation has also resulted in diversion of power from Delhi's quota to that State.