Demand soars, 161 power cuts across city
REASONING OUT As Delhi residents sweat it out, discoms blame local faults, and lack of space for new transformers and poles
The number of powerrelated complaints received by distribution companies over the past one week has increased by nearly four times.
Delhi government reports indicate that from just 3,111 complaints recorded on May 30, the problems consumers faced spiked to 11,612 on June 5.
On June 4, there were 7,293 complaints with the highest coming from areas under discom BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) that serves East Delhi. Officials said the three discoms together receive about 4,400 complaints daily during peak summer months.
The demand on Monday (June 5) touched 6,361 MW, while Tuesday’s consumption rose to an alltime high of 6,526 MW at 3.31 pm.
Even as the Delhi government once again claimed of having no supply shortage, residents continued to face a harrowing time with long and sporadic power cuts. Areas under discom Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) that supplies power to only about 25% of Delhi’s 50 lakh power consumers faced the maximum outages.
At least 55 areas fed by TPDDL faced outages between 6 am on June 5 to 6 am on June 6 out of which in 16 cases the blackout went on for more than two hours. Discoms BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) and BYPL had 53 cases of power cuts each.
With scores of residents agitated over the city’s power situation, Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) have come forward to make their voices heard. “Last year the maximum demand was 6,260 MW and Tuesday’s demand is not even a 5% increase from that. Why is the government still unable to manage the power supply if there is no shortage and when the increase is so less?” questioned BS Vohra of East Delhi RWAs Joint Front.
People complained that outages were more often during the evening or night time making it difficult for them to stay at home.
Officials are predicting that the demand could touch 6,750 MW by June-end or mid-July when the humidity increases.
“But once the humidity increases people will switch to ACs which will further raise the load,” explained a power official.
He said due to extreme heat and power demand even during the night, the electricity network does not get sufficient time to cool down. This stresses the network and at times, leading to faults.
Discoms said lack of space to augment the electricity network also impacts supply.
“In unauthorised colonies, there is no space plan earmarked for utilities. The residents don’t allow erecting new poles in front of their flats and refuse space for installation of transformers,” discoms said. TPDDL BYPL BRPL
After a hard day at work, I cannot even sleep peacefully at home. Last night, there was no electricity for nearly four hours. Some people are still using coolers. But once the humidity rises, all of them are going to switch to ACs, which will further increase the load.