NEW DELHI, 8 March 2008 — The day began as a black Friday for residents of northern India, including the capital city, as they woke up to find no electricity and no water supply. The problem was caused by over 50 transmission lines having tripped due to dense smog in the region. No electricity meant no water as the water supply is dependent on power.
First reported at midnight, the problem was corrected by midday yesterday. The railroad traffic was also severely affected. The worst hit states were Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
“Fog combined with pollution gets deposited on insulators and causes tripping. This has been happening for quite some time. However, the situation has aggravated now,” Power Grid Corp Executive Director (System Operation) S.K. Sonee said. “Tripping of transmission lines is a normal phenomenon during winters,” he said.
“There was very heavy fog last night in western Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana leading to frequent tripping of transmission lines in these regions,” Chairman and Managing Director of Power Grid Corp R.P. Singh said. The problem forced some power stations to shut down.
Fifty lines of 400kv in Delhi, western UP and Haryana tripped at about 3 a.m., a spokesman for the Northern Regional Load Dispatch Center of the Power Grid Corporation said. The system was restored around 9 a.m., he said.
Rajeev Saxena, chief public relations officer of Northern Railways said 25 trains had been delayed. They included Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains between the capital and various cities. However, trains left New Delhi, Nizamuddin and Delhi stations as scheduled in the afternoon and evening.
Rishi Raj, spokesman of the Delhi Transco limited, said: “Eastern and western parts of Delhi faced blackouts when the northern power grid problem began. North and south Delhi also faced intermittent electricity outages but were not badly affected.”
Sutanshu Agarwal, deputy general manager of power transmission in Ghaziabad, said Uttar Pradesh towns falling in the national capital region were badly affected by the outage.
— With input from agencies
