Delhi power crisis: Protests continue, centre steps in (Roundup)

Protests over Delhi's power outages continued Wednesday even as the centre allocated more gas to a power plant to enable it double its production. Meanwhile, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal accused the centre of shielding the discoms.

Wednesday also saw the season's highest demand of 5,470 MW.

The 1,500 MW Bawana (Pragati-III) Power Plant started generating over 400 MW power after GAIL - on the centre's directions - pumped more gas into it Tuesday night. Built at a cost of Rs.4,500 crore, the gas-strapped plant was generating some 218 MW.

Congress legislator Jai Kishan staged a protest in Delhi's northwest area of Sultanpuri.

"We have never seen such long power cuts, lasting up to 10-12 hours a day, due to which even the water supply has been affected. Our children are not able to prepare for their examinations," a resident of the area said.

In a letter to the prime minister, Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal alleged Delhi's discoms are "not doing their job properly".

"It, however, appears the government is shying away from fixing the accountability of discoms and at times one gets an impression the government is trying to protect these discoms," he wrote.

He asked Modi to "strictly enforce the accountability of these discoms", citing an agreement which binds them "to maintain their equipment and network so people get uninterrupted power supply".

Following a storm May 30 which damaged transmission lines in Delhi, the city has seen erratic and long power cuts in the sweltering heat.

The storm also tripped many lines of the Northern Grid, affecting power supply to the national capital.

The Northern Grid supplies power to Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It covers 30 percent of India's geographical area and supplies power to 28 percent of the country's population.

The mercury reached a 62-year-high of 47.8 degrees Celsius June 8 in certain parts of the national capital.

"Delhi's power secretary held a meeting with all the discoms and told them large-scale and repeated outages will not be tolerated," said a Delhi government official.

The status of all outages in the city over the last 24 hours was also reviewed in the meeting.

The discoms have also been directed to increase the number of mobile teams to constantly monitor the status of their distribution transformers in the city so local faults can be addressed in real-time.

For citizen convenience, all the planned outages and load-shedding schedules of the discoms will be released in advance and will be available on the website of the concerned discom as a daily bulletin, said a statement.