Massive Power Outage In Delhi Amid Severe Heatwave

New Delhi: A massive power outage hit parts of Delhi on Tuesday afternoon as the national capital's temperature hovered around 42 degrees Celsius. Power went out in several parts of Delhi, as areas including the residences of Delhi LG secretariat and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, faced outages for varying lengths.

Power distribution company officials said several areas, largely in central and east Delhi, were affected due to the failure. Some areas in north Delhi also faced outages. The national capital faced outages as a substation of power grid in neighbouring UP's Mandola which supplies 1,500 megawatts of electricity to Delhi caught fire Tuesday afternoon.

Delhi Areas That Faced Power Outage

"Areas likely Civil Lines, Model Town, Kashmiri Gate, Gulabi Bagh, Shakti Nagar and Vijay Nagar in North Delhi faced outages. The supply was resumed within an hour," said a discom official.

He said the power supply of the LG House and CM's residence was also briefly affected.

Areas in east, central, south and north Delhi like ITO, Laxmi Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Jamia, Narela, Model Town, Rohini, Gopalpur, Sabzi Mandi, Wazirpur, and Kashmiri Gate also faced outages, he said.

Delhi Power Minister Atishi Blames Fire in UP Power Grid

Reacting to the incident, Delhi Power Minister Atishi termed the occurrence extremely worrying and said she would meet the Union Power minister and chairman of Power Grid Corporation to ensure the prevention of such a situation.

"There has been a major power cut in many parts of Delhi since 2:11 PM today. A power grid in UP's Mandola which supplies 1,500 MW of electricity to Delhi, has caught fire. We are linking it to our other power sources. This is a very serious issue," Delhi's Power Minister Atishi said.

“I will seek time today from the new Union Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the chairman of PGCIL and the chairman of NTPC since the country's power transmission is run by the central government. There is very limited electricity production in Delhi, most of the electricity in Delhi comes from different states. It is a matter of great concern that today the national level power infrastructure of our country has failed,” she added.

In a letter to Union Power minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Atishi said that because of the fire at Mandola, there was a power outage of nearly two hours in several parts of Delhi, including Wazirabad, Kashmere Gate, Geeta Colony, Harsh Vihar, Preet Vihar, IP Power, Rajghat, Narela, and Gopalpur.

"The Delhi government has always tried to provide electricity 24x7. A few weeks ago, the peak power demand of 8300 MW was also met without any blackout. But today there was a power cut in Delhi due to the National Power Grid and we will take immediate action on this," she wrote in a statement.

Power Restoration Work

Power discom Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited said in a statement that power supply in its areas was swiftly restored.

The fire incident impacted the power supply at DTL Grid sub-stations in Gopalpur, Sabzi Mandi, Kashmiri Gate and Narela affecting power supply in areas of TPDDL, it said.

"This led to disruption of power in areas like Narela, Bhalaswa, Burari, Badli, Dheerpur, Shakti Nagar, Swiss apartment, Civil Lines, Model Town, Kashmiri Gate, Shahjada Bagh, Delhi University, GTB Nagar area, Mukherjee Nagar & Jahangirpuri resulting into load shedding of 440 MW and affecting approx. 4 Lakh consumers," it said.

The discom started restoration work immediately completed it within an hour, it added.