Planned maintenance or load shedding?
NEW DELHI: As power cuts across Delhi-NCR stretch from minutes to hours, confusion and frustration are growing among residents. While official statements attribute these outages to planned maintenance, tripping, and other project works, the absence of transparent, real-time information from the city’s electricity providers has only deepened public suspicion.
Delhi Government’s Power Department relies on 2 power suppliers - Tata Power-DDL and BSES (which includes BRPL and BYPL; Rajdhani and Yamuna). However, for an average consumer trying to find information about upcoming power outages, neither official websites lead them anywhere. Tata Power’s website only publishes reports of planned outages, but they do so retrospectively; not in advance - whereas BSES’ websites also allow access to detailed day-by-day reports, where instances of unplanned tripping are also mentioned, but these, too, are published retrospectively.
The lack of advance notice and other discrepancies in official websites leave room for doubt about the truth behind the power cuts.
For the month of June 2025, Tata Power’s published reports describe a limited number of outages lasting between 2 to 6 hours, generally attributing them to preventative maintenance or infrastructure work. BSES’ reports show shorter outages, often labeled as a result of “tripping.”
Neither provider mentions load shedding in their public materials, yet, several media reports and anecdotal accounts use the term, suggesting that power cuts may also be supply-related.
However, according to the State Load Dispatch Center (SLDC), the apex body to ensure integrated operation of the power system in Delhi, the peak demand for electricity in 2025 is lower than 2024 - last year, the peak demand was 8656 MW, whereas the current demand is 8442 MW.
The official statement from both electricity providers is that instances of outages are localized and often resolved within a few minutes or hours of receiving reports. But the question remains - why is the public complaining more - why does the infrastructure suddenly appear to be weak? While there is no large-scale blackout in the city, even localised outages are raising concern due to the scorching heat and its subsequent implications. A thread on Reddit titled “What’s going on with the power supply in Delhi?” has garnered over 200 responses, with users from all corners of the city sharing stories of unannounced outages, the need to buy inverters and generators, and helplessness. Many complain that app notifications and SMS alerts — once standard — are no longer reliable. Others say outages often occur late at night or early morning, affecting sleep, work-from-home, and cooling systems.
As Delhi heads deeper into July, residents are left navigating a patchwork of alerts, half-loaded websites, and guesswork. With peak demand likely to remain high until the monsoon stabilises, better communication — and more transparency — may be the bare minimum the city deserves.
