Fire at UP sub-station hits power in large parts of Delhi

Several neighbourhoods in parts of northeast, east, central, south, and north Delhi faced power outages for around two hours on Tuesday afternoon after a fire at a power grid substation in Mandola in Uttar Pradesh, officials aware of the matter said.

The outage temporarily brought parts of the city to a halt, with traffic signals in various parts of the city left non-functional, while operations of at five water treatment plants — already under stress due to the summer heat — were adversely affected.

However, there were no disruptions reported by the Delhi Metro, at hospitals, or other essential services, said officials.

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The 400 kV sub-station of the Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) in Mandola supplies around 1,200 MW of power to the Capital. Delhi’s electricity distribution companies (discoms) said the outages were reported from 2.11pm, and the power supply was gradually restored in the city between 3.30pm and 4.30pm, officials said.

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Delhi power minister Atishi called the outage a failure of the national power grid.

“The Delhi government has always tried to provide electricity 24x7. A few weeks ago, the peak power demand of nearly 8,300MW was also met without any blackout. But on Tuesday, there was a power cut in Delhi due to the national power grid and we will take immediate action on this,” Atishi said.

“The consequences of such failure of power infrastructure due to the national grid in the country’s Capital can be very serious. We will meet the Union energy minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) and PGCIL chairperson and demand that such a situation should not arise again in the country’s Capital,” she added.

The Union power ministry did not comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, PGCIL said that the disruption caused due to a “technical problem”.

Outages were reported from ITO, Laxmi Nagar, Ashram, Old Delhi, Shahdara, Seelampur, Trilokpuri, Patparganj, Mayur Vihar, Lajpat Nagar, Jamia, Rohini, Gopalpur, Sabzi Mandi, Wazirpur, Kashmere Gate, Gulabi Bagh, Krishna Nagar, Baldev Park, Sukhdev Vihar, Sarita Vihar and Shakti Nagar, among a large list of locations in the city.

Residents feel the heat

BS Vohra, the joint front president of the East Delhi RWAs, who lives in Krishna Nagar, said his neighbourhood saw a power cut from around 2pm to 3.30pm, as did large parts of east Delhi.

“People were communicating through WhatsApp groups that there was an outage in their area too, and we soon realised that the problem was not limited to some specific neighbourhoods, but large parts of east Delhi. My phone battery just had 10% charge and the heat made it unbearable for us to stay indoors,” Vohra said.

In north Delhi, Civil Lines — where Raj Niwas and the chief minister’s official residence are located — also experienced power outages, along with neighbourhoods in Model Town and Vijay Nagar, the local discom said.

In Delhi University, the outage hit the entire north campus. “The power supply did not resume till our office closed at around 4pm,” said Anup Lather, PRO, Delhi University.

Ops at WTPs hit

The blackout and power outage on Tuesday hit operations at several water treatment plants in Delhi, with productivity becoming normal only after around one-and-a-half hours, a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) official said.

The power failure impacted operations at Chandrawal, Wazirabad, Sonia Vihar, Bhagirathi, and Okhla water treatment plants. “The power supply at these plants resumed at around 3.15pm to 3.20pm and the plants started running normally in another 30 minutes,” the DJB official said requesting anonymity.

The impact in terms of quantum of daily water production is still unclear. “We will try to make up production for the one-hour affected period, but the net impact will be clear only on Wednesday,” a second official said.

Traffic signals go blank

Several traffic signals across north, central, and south Delhi stopped functioning due to the power supply failure that threw traffic out of gear at some important intersections such as the Ashram Chowk, ITO Crossing, Delhi Gate crossing near Daryaganj and Rajghat Crossing on the Ring Road.

The traffic signals stopped working suddenly, especially at road intersections, leaving motorists confused and affecting the traffic flow.

“As this matter was brought to our notice, we deployed sufficient traffic personnel on the affected traffic points to regulate the traffic movement,” said additional commissioner of police (traffic, east zone) Dinesh Kumar Gupta.

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Around 3pm, HT witnessed chaos at the Rajghat Crossing on the Ring Road as motorists negotiated their way from all four sides – from Rajghat towards Kotwali, from Kotwali towards Rajghat, from IP flyover towards north Delhi, and from north Delhi towards IP flyover and Kotwali. At least two traffic personnel were seen standing on the Ring Road on the side of the carriageway towards the IP flyover. No personnel were present on the intersection to manually regulate the motorists and the flow of vehicles.

“The traffic signals were non-functional for nearly two hours. We deployed traffic personnel in sufficient numbers on the key intersections to ensure no traffic jams were caused and no collision between vehicles took place,” a second traffic police official said, on condition of anonymity.

The other areas where the traffic was manually regulated included traffic signals at Krishna Nagar, East Azad Nagar, Bihari Colony and GTB Enclave, police said.