A massive grid failure left more than 300 million people without power in New Delhi and much of northern India in the worst blackout to hit the Indian country for more than ten years.
The lights in New Delhi and other 7 states went out around 2 o’clock in the morning and had not been restored by the morning rush-hour, leaving the capital’s Indian workers sweltering overnight, then stranded at trains stations in the morning as services have been cancelled.
A massive grid power failure are frequent in much of the country, including major cities. Chaos reigned on New Delhi’s always hectic roads as stop lights failed.
Massive India blackout leaves more than 300 million residents without power
Power shortages and a creaky road and rail network have weighed heavily on the country’s efforts to industrialise. Faced with a slump in the economy, New Delhi recently scaled back a target to pump 1 trillion dollars into infrastructure over the next 5 years.
Blackouts lasting up to 8 hours a day are iterative in much of India and have sparked angry protests on the industrial fringes of New Delhi this summer, the hottest in years. The whole confusion reigned on Delhi’s always-hectic roads today as stop lights failed and thousands of commuters abandoned the metro.
Indian politician and power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has blamed the outage on an incident near Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, without giving details. Shinde said that sixty percent of normal service had been restored by midmorning and full power would be back today in the afternoon.
Power failure blacks out over 300 million people in India / North’s India worst blackout in a decade
Authorities made restoring services to hospitals and transport systems a priority. By midday electricity had returned to much of New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, a state with more people than Brazil. Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir were also hit.
The head of India’s state-run Power Grid Corporation, Ram Nayak has commented : ‘ We’ll find out the reason and see that such kind of things are avoided in the future. The biggest priority is to connect essential loads back to public transport systems, whether it be the rail or the airport, hospitals and other places. ‘
India suffers a peak hour power deficit of about 12%. It has been made worse this year by a weak monsoon, driving demand from farmers pumping more water from wells.
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