Title - Grid failure: Power restoration starts in Uttar Pradesh, panic continues

LUCKNOW: Power supply to railways in Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad was restored through northern grid by the evening. However, rest of the state continued to reel under power crisis. Authorities said that power supply for crucial services like railways and hospitals will be restored by 7-8 pm but for for normal supply, people will have to wait till midnight. The power restoration in major cities like Lucknow, Agra and Varanasi was also expected by 8 pm. In Lucknow, supply of VIP localities having residences of chief minister and ministers, Raj Bhawan and posh Gomtinagar was restored at around 6 pm.

Earlier, at around 1.05 pm, the Uttar Pradesh plunged into power crisis again with Northern Power Grid collapsed second time in last two days. As compared to the blackout in the wee hours on Monday, the impact on Tuesday was more because of prolonged power outage during the day. On Monday, UP Power Corporation Limited was able to provide relief to emergency services like hospitals, railways and water supply in major districts by borrowing power from the eastern grid. But on Tuesday, the crisis aggravated further because Eastern Power Grid also tripped. The Northern Grid collapsed on Tuesday again while the power of restoring power supply was underway. This time again a fault in transmission near Agra triggered the collapse.

Railways was the worst hit with all trains on electrified routes in the state came to standstill. Over 125 trains were affected in Mughalsarai junction alone. The railway authorities deployed diesel engines for a few important trains such as Shatabdi Express and Gomti Express from Lucknow but it could not bring the desired relief. Trains were delayed for more than 10-12 hours. Some even more. Passengers complaint that they were not getting information about the status of the trains. Chaos and confusion prevailed at the Charbagh railway station in Lucknow. The rush due to festival of Rakshi added to the problem. Heavy rush was witnessed for the state roadways buses as almost all the 421 trains which passes through the state were running late.

Health services in Lucknow were also badly hit. Though many hospitals had back up in the form of generators but in view of the crisis, only emergency surgical operations were done. Hospitals gave priority to emergency services, Intensive Care Units and burn Patients' wards. The patients in general wards were forced to live hot and humid conditions. Patients in centralised air conditioned wards also faced difficulties. Authorities kept their fingers crossed hoping for restoration of power supply as early as possible because most of the big hospitals have back up for 10-15 hours. However, the situation was grim in most of the small private nursing homes which had back up only for few hours. Similar situation was reported from other parts of UP.

Over 50,000 small scale industries in the west UP and Kanpur suffered huge losses due to the power crisis. "We have generator sets but fuel capacity is only for 12 hours. Power in other places was restored but we are facing blackout from Monday morning," said SC Garg, a Kanpur based industrialist. Cases of people caught in lifts and dysfunctional ATM services were also reported from all over the state. Panic buying of the diesel for generator sets led to shortage of fuel in many parts. According to rough estimates over 50 lakh crore people were directly affected by the power crisis after the grid collapse. At many places, households preferred not to use inverters and generators to save alternate resource for the night, in case crisis stretched for long.

Even in the normal circumstances, heavy rostering is done across UP because power generation in the state is less than one third of the demand. But sources said that in last few days,e power generation of thermal power plants in the state has come down further due to shortage of coal. Also, there is pressure from the government of supplying 24X7 to constituencies represented by the VVIP like Kannauj, Rampur, Etawah, Mainpuri etc. The UP Power Corporation Limited has also been asked to supply more power to rural areas which received scanty rain this monsoon for irrigation. There is also pressure of fulfilling government's promise to ensure uninterrupted power supply to Muslim dominated areas in the state in the ongoing month of Ramazan.