Title - Live: Team Anna sees conspiracy in power crisis

12.24pm: In a bizarre claim, Team Anna is alleging that the power crisis is part of a government conspiracy to prevent people from attending its fast. Team Anna member Sanjay Singh reportedly alleged that the government was doing everything it could to stop people from going to Jantar Mantar.

Team Anna‘s protest in Delhi is entering its sixth day today, with Anna Hazare himself now fasting for a second day. After an initially tepid reception, the crowds returned to Jantar Mantar over the weekend, with around 6000 people attending the fast on Sunday.

12.18pm

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is scheduled to meet Minister of power and energy, Sushil Kumar Shinde. The meeting comes in the wake of the massive power crisis that knocked seven states off the grid, and crippled a number of services, including the Metro in Delhi. There are still no details on what is expected to be discussed.

12.07pm: Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has said that power should be restored across the Northern grid by late afternoon. Addressing the media at around 11 am, Minister of power and energy, Sushil Kumar Shinde, said technicians were handling the problem, adding that power ought to be restored in a few hours.

Latest reports coming in say that 30 percent power has been supplied to Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir, and around 50% to Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. The Delhi metro is now running as normal, and all train services across North India have started functioning.

A list of trains that are affected can be accessed below:
11.36am: Power in the state capital and major towns of Uttar Pradesh have limped back to normalcy, eight hours after the Northern Grid tripped, while many trains en-route to and through the state were left stranded, officials said.

The power situation was almost normal in Lucknow and the eastern parts of the state, said an official.

Barring Noida and Kanpur, power had been restored to half the normal capacity, Avanish Awasthi, chairman and managing director (CMD) Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL), told IANS.

“We have been able to successfully restore power in most parts of the state barring Noida, Greater Noida and Kanpur, but will soon tide over the crisis,” the top official informed.

Many districts in the state plunged into darkness following the tripping of the Northern Grid at around 2.33 am.

Many important trains like the Lucknow-Delhi Mail and overnight trains plying between New Delhi, Lucknow, Allahabad and Varanasi, Moradabad, were stranded en-route, while some were being brought to the nearest stations by diesel engines, a railway official said.

Street lights still on but only in Central Delhi. Arlene Chang/Firstpost
11.09am: Union Minister for power and energy Sushil Kumar Shinde has said that 60 percent of power has been restored to the Northern grid, and said he has appointed a three-member committee to probe what had caused the entire Northern grid to fail, plunging nine states into crisis.

“The reason for the outage was due to some states taking more power than they ought to have, which causes the frequency rate of the grid to go up. The offending states will be severely penalized”, Shinde told a gathering of reporters. However he said that the committee would investigate if there were any other reasons for the outage.

Shinde added that once the Northern grid had gone down, they began borrowing power from the Western and Eastern grids in order to provide power supply to emergency services.

The Minister was also quick to point out that the failure was an aberration, saying that India had one of the best power grids in the world. He also said that unlike the last time an outage of this nature occurred it took a mere six hours to begin restoring power as opposed to 16 hours before.

10.42am: Almost all Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains are delayed by over 4 to 5 hours in North India as a result of the breakdown.

The Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi Express left the local station 90 minutes behind its scheduled departure of 6.53 am after a diesel engine was attached to it.

The trains affected include the Amritsar Delhi Shatabdi Express, Allahabad Chandigarh Unchahaar, Lucknow Chandigarh Sadbhavna, Howraha Kalka Mail, Delhi Jammu Mail and a number of other super fast, express, passenger and local trains.

Meanwhile power is slowly being restored to the seven states affected by the breakdown in the national grid. Power has been partially restored to Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

Distribution companies are now supplying power on a priority basis, with hospitals and the Delhi Jal board getting first preference. However it will still take a few more hours for power to be completely restored across all nine states. Union minister for power and energy, Sushil Kumar Shinde said about 40% power had been restored across the region.

10.35am: Five of Delhi’s six water treatment plants are now operational. Power companies are giving priority to the Jal Board and its pumping stations to restore water to the city.

Residents in Delhi can expect erratic supply this evening, though the Jal Board is trying to ensure some amount of supply to each colony, say officials.

10.07am: Power is being slowly restored across North India, but officials estimate that the situation will only fully return to normal by evening. Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said about 40 percent power had been restored, including to emergency services.

Commuters in Delhi are still facing problems, since a majority of the traffic lights are still not functional. However the Delhi metro is now almost back to normal, as it is receiving hydel power from Bhutan.

9.58am: Services on all six lines of the Delhi Metro resumed by 8.45am after almost three hours of disruption.

“Services in all the six lines became normal by 8.45 a.m. We are receiving hydel power from Bhutan on priority basis,” a Delhi Metro official said. He added that Delhi Metro was amongst the emergency services, including the prime minister’s residence and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), that were being provided power.

“We were unable to operate any of the lines for an hour from 6am to 7am due to tripping of power supply. At 7am we restored 25 percent of the trains on all the lines, and now all the trains are plying as usual,” the official added.

Delhi Metro normally operates over 2,700 trips a day, covering about 70,000 km and carrying around 1.8 million passengers on week days.

9.52am: CNN-IBN reports that train services have resumed in all seven states affected by the failure on the Northern grid. Meanwhile the Hindustan Times tweeted that the Delhi metro was almost back to normal, as they had received power from Bhutan:

Hindustan Times@htTweets
Delhi Metro gets power supply from Bhutan, 70% of metro services resumed #ht
30 जुलाई 12 जवाबरीट्वीटपसंद करें
9.45am: Operations at the Delhi airport largely remained unaffected even as power supply to six states was hit early this morning due to the failure of Northern Grid.

“As soon as there was a disruption in power supply, all our essential services like flight arrival and departure, check-in, baggage handling, and aerobridge services were shifted to our back-up system. So all these operations remained normal”, an airport spokesperson said.

“We have one of the best DG (Diesel Generating) back-up system of the world. However, there might be some disruption in our non-essential services”, he added.

There were reports of air conditioning not functioning in Terminal 1D and some portions of Terminal 3. There was also no power in some retail outlets at the airport.

“Overall ninety-five percent of our services remained unaffected”, a spokesperson said.

9.36am: Delhi is slowly coming back on the grid, with a number of Twitterati from the city reporting that they are now receiving power.

Smita Prakash@smitaprakash
Power restored in my area #Delhi
30 जुलाई 12 जवाबरीट्वीटपसंद करें
Monika Halan@monikahalan
Saved. Saved. Just as the last breath was inhaled. The fans start with a click. "@gchikermane: ...And there is light."
30 जुलाई 12 जवाबरीट्वीटपसंद करें
Venkat Ananth@venkatananth
Aaaaand...power's back!
30 जुलाई 12 जवाबरीट्वीटपसंद करें
9.24am: Power has been now partially restored to Delhi and the states of Himachal, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Punjab. Power grid Chairman Ram Naik said the priority is to supply power to hospitals, followed by the railways, airports and the Delhi metro. He also said that this was the worst power failure to hit the Northern grid in eleven years.

9.03am:  Railway services across North India have been partially restored, but officials have said that it will take another three or four hours to completely stabilize. As many as forty trains on the Northern lines are running late.

In Delhi the metro is running at 25% capacity, with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is saying that they cannot ply any more trains until power is completely restored to the city. Train services on all six corridors were affected since morning and the Metro was able to run trains only from 7am, an hour later than the usual time of 6am.

The CPRO for Northern Railways Neeraj Sharma said power supply has been partially restored allowing some trains to move. “Many trains on the adjoining networks have been held up in different stations. Power supply has been partially restored. Trains have started moving in the Delhi division. Trains which were held up have been moved with diesel engines”, he said.

Meanwhile Minister of power and energy Sushil Kumar Shinde told CNN IBN that officials were trying to fix the problem in the Northern grid which developed because of a fault near Agra, but added that it would take about an hour or so before power was fully restored.

8:55 am:  IBN-Live reports that power supply has been restored in some parts of North India including Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

8.50 am:  Firstpost reporter, Arlene Chang, from New Delhi, tells us that, most traffic signals around Delhi are not working except for those situated in VIP areas in central Delhi like Jor Bagh, Race course etc. Some areas of Central Delhi have also received power.

North India is reeling under a severe power crisis after a massive grid-line failure.  Seven states — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir — are facing  a massive power outage since 2 am last night.

According to the IBN-Live report, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that it’ll take another one and a half hour’s time to restore power. “My officers are on the spot. The fault is found near Agra. It will be corrected in one and a half hour time,” he said.

According to this NDTV profit tweet, power should be restored in Delhi in 2-3 hours.

NDTV Profit@NDTVProfit
Power supply in Delhi to resume in 2-3 hours shar.es/vbzaW
30 जुलाई 12 जवाबरीट्वीटपसंद करें
NDTV reports,that all power generation units of National Thermal Power Corporation or NTPC and state units in eight states auto tripped. In Uttar Pradesh, none of the NTPC or state units are on stream till now.

No Elecriticty today. Reuters
The Delhi Metro has also been affected due to the power crisis and trains are unlikely to run today unless power is restored. It seems the Airport services have been shifted to generators as this tweet points out.