The grid failure threw more than 60 per cent of the Indian population in the dark and brought all essential services, including railways, hospitals, water supply and airports, to a grinding halt.
The failure followed a similar crisis in the functioning of transmission lines yesterday and covered the northern, eastern and the north-eastern grids that supply electricity to 20 states. The other two grids -- Western and Southern -- remained unaffected.
Authorities have been unable to determine the exact cause of the outage, though some have pointed towards heavy overdrawing of power from the grid by a few states including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana to be a plausible cause.
“Around 3,000 Megawatt (Mw) of power has been overdrawn from the eastern grid. Strict action will be taken against the states indulging in overdrawal,” Power Minister SK Shinde told reporters on Tuesday. Drawing more power than scheduled from the grid is a violation of the Indian Electricity Grid Code (IEGC) and attracts penalty from the central electricity regulator.
Data showed that the nine northern states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh together drew 28.5 Million Units (MUs) of power from the grid before it collapsed at 2:30 am on 30 July. Some of these states have been drawing excessively from the grid in the past to avoid buying cheaper power from the market, sources said.
Trains were halted midway and batteries were used to haul them to the nearest stations. Banking operations were affected and the intercity metro shut down for several hours causing huge irate crowds to gather. Traffic signals shut down and airport operations were run on backup power.
India has had a historic power shortage which was compounded by deficit rainfall. Agricultural pump-sets were run twice as long, leading to overdrawing of power.
Finance, power ministers shuffled
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram was switched to the finance portfolio on Tuesday in a reshuffle that also saw the power minister promoted as a massive electricity failure struck the country.
The president's office announced that Chidambaram would begin his third stint as the head of the finance ministry, where he will be charged with re-firing India's spluttering economy.
He will be replaced at the home ministry by Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who spent Tuesday tackling an unprecedented electricity outage that saw supplies fail in half the country, affecting more than 600 million people.
"There has been a small reallocation of portfolios," a senior official in the premier's office, Sharat Chandra, told AFP.
The son of a cobbler from the low-caste community, Shinde is a former police inspector who rose to become chief minister of the huge and politically vital western state of Maharashtra, home to commercial capital Mumbai.
He is seen as a staunch loyalist to the Gandhi family, which dominates the ruling Congress party, and has passed ahead of rivals to grab one of the biggest jobs in the government despite having a previously low public profile.
The opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised the changes and there was incredulity on Twitter, where many users questioned the timing of his promotion.
"There is nothing much here to be lauded," BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar told AFP.
The power portfolio will be added to the responsibilities of M. Veerappa Moily, the current minister of corporate affairs, who will have to tackle an electricity crisis that has deeply embarrassed the government.
The finance portfolio is currently being handled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who took over from former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee when he resigned last month to run for election to become India's president.
Chidambaram was praised by economists for his pro-business budgets during his previous stints as finance minister, although he faced brickbats from left-wing parties for his pursuit of foreign investment.
Seen as a safe pair of hands by the ruling Congress party leadership, the former lawyer was asked to take over the home ministry after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people and left India reeling.
India's once-booming economy grew just 5.3 percent between January and March, its slowest annual quarterly expansion in nine years, and the central bank issued new gloomy predictions on Tuesday.
The Reserve Bank of India slashed its GDP growth forecast for this financial year to April 2013 from 7.3 percent to 6.5 percent, while predicting that inflation at the end of the year would be higher than previously forecast.
Analysts have begun talking about India suffering from "stagflation" -- stagnant growth but high inflation -- and the government has been widely criticised by business groups for failing to introduce pro-market reforms.
There was no place in the cabinet for political pin-up Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, who had recently indicated he was ready to play a bigger role in politics.
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Well, this is the time to ask: where was that 5000MW "magnanimous" offer to Pakistan going to be honoured from? Thank your lucky stars, Pakistan, you did not get snared into the debacle! Don't say that you had not been warned! If I have said it once, I have said it several times that ManMohan is powerless to deliver - on anything- to Pakistan or anyone else! Having said that, it might be a shock to Pakistanis gloating with schadenfreude to be told that there was no systemic failure. The system worked exactly as it was supposed to function. The protections built into the system worked. If they had not, there would have been a real meltdown and the rapidity with which the system was brought around would have not been possible at all. Such cascading collapse was seen in the US also. For India, it was a wake-up call. From now on, politicians will think twice before announcing energy freebies to their vote banks. And may be, just may be, something would be done about energy pilferage straight off the distribution lines by public. Another observation to make: the regions of India that were affected are all governed by undisciplined, irresponsible Muslim-appeasers. I demand that capital of India be relocated south of the Vindhyas although it will mean a long train-ride for me. Under the circumstances, one can never be sure that once you get on the train, it will move at all, much less deliver you at the other end!
The fool who could not handle the Power Ministry now has the home ministry to bungle !
Cabinet shuffle has to do with Mukerji becoming President and not to the power outage as it was restored in most areas within two hrs.
Power was restored in more than 45% of area after India purchased power from another SARC nation Bhutan. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and other SARC nation should learn from this and become member of the grid. Incidentally it is good for India to face power outage. It shows that infrastructure is aging and it is time to invest in power infrastructure to prevent future outages.
But do note - people did not go rampaging or destroying public property. This indicates that the peoples attitudes are maturing.
ISI caused it.
CIA-RAW can make India's power grids fail by microwave signals from satellites. See 'Indian Air Force Pilots' Murder' : IndianAirForcePilotsMurderDOTblogspotDOTcom and addendum dated February 26, 2006 titled 'National Security Crisis Due To Microwaves From Satellites' in my blog titled 'Nuclear Supremacy For India Over U.S.' : NuclearSupremacyForIndiaOverUSDOTblogspotDOTcom which can also be found by a Yahoo/Google search with the title. Satish Chandra
I don't think the reporters know the difference between "temporary power failure" and "power cut". But whatever makes you feel less miserable :)
@Wajib
A clock that has stopped still shows the right time twice a day. Some would say that is better than a clock that always runs ten minutes behind. Is that what you mean by your worst is still better than their best?
In any case, a grid rarely fails when there is no power being transmitted.
@Wajib: you have daily outages of what we call one day tragedy. the outage was a tragedy and shortfall of supply or lack of money for oil or coal. your best is daily 10 hr cut. our worst is one day cut of 10 hrs
If ever your enthusiasm about your fatherland waivers, just have a look at your eastern neighbour - your worst is still better than their best. It is just that your expectations are first world.
When I read such news I cannot help commiserate with inhabitants of shining india - democracy, anyone?