POWERLESS IN POWER CAPITAL

The power demand in the national capital on Tuesday touched an all-time high of 5,925 mega watts even as areas across the city faced electricity cuts for upto four hours.

The previous highest power consumption in the city was recorded on 11 July when it had gone upto 5810 MW.

‘The maximum power demand in the city was recorded at 5,925 MW at 3:20 pm which is a new record of power consumption in the national capital,’ a power department official said.

Despite statements of the discoms about adequate preparations to meet the rising power demand, unscheduled ouatges were reported from many areas of the city. Irked over continuous outages, a group of angry residents allegedly attacked the office of the discom at East Delhi’s Kalyanpuri area. The rise in electricity demand caused power cuts ranging from one to four hours.

Power department officials claimed there was no shortage of power but outages were taking place due to problems in distribution network of BSES discoms.

Explaining the reasons for the power cuts, they said when the electricity demand goes up, the distribution lines trip as they have not been strengthened to take increased loads.

The government has been asking BSES discoms to improve their power distribution network. The power demand in the city has been increasing at a rate of around eight per cent in the last few years and the government had projected it to touch 6,000 MW this summer.

According to official figures, the power demand in 1905 was just two mega watt which had increased to 27 mega watt in 1947. The peak demand was recorded at 86 MW in 1961 and 259 MW in 1971. It had touched 563 MW in 1981 and rose to 1,536 MW in 1992. In 1997, the demand increased to 2,303 MW and further to 2,879 MW in 2001.