Monster power cut knocks out half of India's power
"We are busy with the revival right now... Both the Northern and Eastern grids have collapsed. Please allow us to address the problem," VK Agrawal, the general manager of the northern grid, told AFP.
In New Delhi, the metro train system came to a standstill and many traffic lights were out for the second day in a row after the northern grid failed on Monday in the worst power outage in a decade.
"Drivers of all the metro trains have been asked to stop at the stations. No passengers will be allowed in the metro station until power is restored," a metro spokeswoman told AFP.
About 400 trains were affected by the power outage, a spokesman for the railways told AFP.
In the east, the city of Kolkata was without power as were most parts of the surrounding state of West Bengal, an official at the West Bengal State Electricity Supply Corp, B Mukherjee, confirmed to AFP.
The eastern grid covers five states including West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Sikkim, and Orissa.
"This is a big crisis. We are working to restore power. Many states overdraw power and this has caused a complete collapse in eastern and northern India," said a senior official at the ministry of power in New Delhi.
On Monday, the northern grid collapsed for six hours shortly after 2:00 am (2030 GMT Sunday), causing travel chaos and widespread inconvenience in nine states including the capital New Delhi.
Major hospitals and airports in the region were able to function normally on emergency back-up power, but train services were severely disrupted.
Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde called it a "failure" but he also boasted that India had been quick to restore power, unlike the United States which took days to restore electricity a 2003 blackout on its eastern seaboard.
He and the rest of the government woke up Tuesday to a barrage of calls for urgent reform of the power sector.
Leading the charge were business lobby groups who said Monday's outage - the worst to hit the country in a decade - underlined the government's inability to address India's perennial electricity shortfall.
"The increasing gap between electricity supply and demand has long been a matter of concern," said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The CII, Banerjee said, has "consistently highlighted" the need for urgent steps to improve supplies of coal to thermal power plants and reforming state distribution utilities.
"This latest outage is just an urgent reminder for addressing these issues as a priority," he added.
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Fellow Indians: India is a developing country with a huge number of problems and we are all aware that we are slowly going in the right direction. Lets not point out the problems in Pakistan or the rest of the world just because we have some issues. That doesnt make us any better than the Pakistanis who point out the problems in the world on a daily basis and continue to keep their blinkers on. Its rather stupid infact to say that Pakistan has 18hrs of loadshedding or that the US had power cuts when we ourselves have issues. We might be better off than Pakistan but by gloating over whats wrong in Pakistan doesnt make the situation in India any better.
Pakistanis: Please get out of this false bravado that you can be compared to India or to any developing country for that matter. Focus on your own problems and build your country. Thats the easyest and only way to chase away the so called Indian trolls.
But this power cut for India is temporary or for the time being but unfortunately for Pakistan energy crisis is permanent and long-lasting........
@casim I am not interested in yur websites but want to correct your facts which you are ignorantly assuming.For your knowlege i am presently sitting in Udaipur which is a C-- grade city of India also from a less developed state Rajasthan. But we get only 2 hrs of daily power cut.Higher grade cities have almost no power cuts unlike pathetic cuts in your cities.So come out of delusion and wake up .Also to all other people who are enjoying this situation,The power supplyhas been restored with in 8 hrs.
This is a grid failure- fully agree with my Indian friends (supposed) who come here & insult us 24/7! BUT look at the magnitude of this power failure, 600 million were affected by it for 2 consecutive days! that's like 3 times the population of Pakistan! apart from this massive grid failure India regularly faces load-shedding on a daily basis, so stop fooling around that all is good in India when it comes to energy resources. As far as Pakistan is concerned well we don't have any shortages its the lack of management which is causing problem otherwise we have more capacity installed compared to the demand.
Lastly, I find it so amusing that some of our Indian friends have nothing else to do except bash us Pakistanis on Pakistani news website's, get a life! even your news channels have special section for all the bad news from Pakistan whereas our Pakistani news website's don't even care about having a special section for Indian news. better look into your own matter's! already your countries economy is on a downward trends coupled with internal communal/ethnic tensions in Asaam, Indian occupied Kashmir etc. Live & let live, Peace out
@fake Shyam
Last time this happened was a decade back but then being a Pakistani you do not know the difference between outage and load shedding
@antanu g:
Did we ask any solutiion for the problem what we have you looser... correct and put your house in order.. do constuctive job, dont always to be leg puller to raise above the other
700 Million almost 4 times the total populs of pakistan people not having electricity..... enjoying people over here.... 180 X 4
if sooooo. then even Just 1 time of these population suffering from power outbreak at pakistan.. no solution... well we will restore it back in action at worst a week...... but wht about you no altrnative at your side..... can you do the same in atleast in one year? think about it....
@entropy: now you are in advantage attach INDIA... definately you will attain Gazwah-e-Hind...
ha ha ha
@Imran: no logic in your statement
Pakistan Zindabaad!! I love Pakistan! Down with indian democracy!!
India is a dirt poor country. They have been made to believe by the Western media that they are some kind of super power (LOL). The reason behind this is that West wants to use India against China which is the real super power. The dirt poor Indians really believe the Western media.
A country considering anyone earning more than 28 rupees to be not poor is pathetic.,
Indian trolls are trying to make everyone believe that this is a one time event. The truth is that there is a load-shedding of 10 to 12 hours in India everyday but the Indian government and media try not to publicize it.
@antanu g: We do not have to fool any one. Here is an interesting link, I found it useful for comparing the energy needs and sources of both countries...
http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/India/Pakistan/Energy
Pakistanis should learn their lesson now India suffers daily loadshedding for upto 12 hours a day but their media is patriotic. Shouting over it will not bring power but only despair and scare away investors something being witnessed in Pakistan.
@Brainsucker: I agree India is looking like a joke.
Shame on my country for not assessing power needs of is population and thus leaving open the possibility of repeated nation wide power failures and a ripe situation for terrorists to gobin action, for emeny nations to launch a surprise attack on india as our defense systems become imprint from lack of power. We should learn from neighbOring Pakustan which never had a failure of this magnitude. Shame on india!!!! If we can't even handle such basic security issues, we have no right to hold onto Kashmir. Let it go to more Napoli nations like Pakistan.
@Pops
Who is boasting here? I stated the real facts. Can you deny them? Stop living in glam world of Bollywood.
asad, quit asking Junaid his real name, if u really have a brain. In india we dont care if one is Muslim, atheist, Hindu etc. You obviously are oblivious to that concept. And stop challenging us you loser.
@Banta Singh: to whom you are fooling? want latest data on Indian power scenario? 25% population has no access to electricity, off the remaining 75%, 70% populace hardly gets 12 hours supply and that too in instalments. don't make yourself a laughing stock by hiding the truth that we are on the same page with Pakistan whenitcomes to electricity shortage and load shedding.
Mr. Kaira, an advice for you to rethink about importing gas from India
@ Asad......funny...so you think no Muslim can show reality to Pakistanis.....at least you muster up some courage to see the real failed Pakistan.......and, in this part of the world, we study in schools and colleges and not in Madrasa like you guys.........:D
@Imran: You are boasting like you guys have gas and electricity 24/7 and luxery flushing toilets in every household. We are heading in the right direction. Can you say the same thing about Pak? The world wants to do business with and in India. Can you say the same?
To get happy with each others misfortunes..............sad indeed.
Sad that Trib first published P R Sharma's comment, then removed it?
This is not a grid failure. These are most definitely power cuts caused by a shortage of electricity. And the problem has just gotten much worse and now affects 700 million indians
"One-third of India's households do not have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census. [AFP]."
and this is not due to any grid failure.
Not to mention the lack of toilets for over 50% Indians.
Lesson for Pakistan: " Do not even dream of importing electricity from India"
To all Pakistan who are teasing about "Shining India",please remember that this is a grid failure...It can happen in any country....Take your donor country "USA" and their power cut in 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastblackoutof_2003
Does this mean that US is not a superpower???? The failure of Grid is just an acute problem which can solved by repairing the grid,not like the power outages you face due to the less generation of power
what an irony..........pakistan's power minister becomes Prime Minster and India's power minister becomes Home (interior) Minister........Hail mediocrity@smj: Can PM Raja Parvez Ashraf give some technical tips to India to restore the grid? He has some experience in power sector!!
Pakistan shoul declare a national holiday.
and still indianss boast that India is a future super power? well its power has been cut or rather has collapsed...
elsewhere in this newspaper" Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Monday threatened to initiate a civil disobedience movement if power outages continued."
we should offer to expore our made in sialkot AAA batteries and laltains. yay
do report of present shortage/ crises of power in pakistan during ramazan
There is a difference between a problem and a deficit.
This is a problem. This does not occur everyday.
I don't understand the jubilation of Pakistanis at a temporary problem.
Lets not Wallow in glee since million of Indians are suffering the way our people are, I am not sure who came up with this term "troll" but every time I read it, I can't stop laughing. Yes, I have been incensed by their bashing Pakistan every day but what I can't understand that where do you get the time to surf Pakistani Papers, it is just amazing, myself, can't read even 2 dailies let alone sit all day and spewing hate all day long , it just reflect how unhappy their lives are that they take the time to be so negative. Keep it up you trolls, it will make your life wonderful.
Nice of India to join us
Hahaha and Indians are criticising us and the rest of the world. No matter what India does, they cannot and will not progress. India is a country where anyone earning above Rs.28 per day is not considered poor. That's pathetic.
All power stored by Sonia.for her family.
@antony:
I like your comment dude. We Pakistanis are well versed in this "power back-up" tricks ;)
"Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde called it a “failure” but he also boasted that India had been quick to restore power, unlike the United States which took days to restore electricity a 2003 blackout on its eastern seaboard" - what a ridiculous and pointless assertion. Try and tell that to the travellers who could not go home on time or had to pay over the odds to alternative transport.
and while pakistanis are worried about Indian power outage....they have no clue about their own failed state ....PAKISTAN.... "Vandalism is becaming he new creed for a generation that will make Pakistan even more ungovernable in coming days"..quoted from ET report on anti-loadshedding riots.... PIA and Pakistan railways are bankrupt... Pakistan has no access to loan from IMF/world Bank..... Pakistan waiting for aid from USA..... more than half of Pakistan has no writ of Government.... UK Envoy dubbed Pakistan as world leader in fraud...
what 64 years of anti-india thinking gave you....lost wars, loss of east-pakistan..and tag of failed state...:D
@pakistani trolls...this is a grid failure..will get restore by midnight..thanks god we are not having power riots just like in pakistani punjab.
@Brainsucker: this also happened in US...........The only Super power........... Emerging power means lot of work left.............Not in the failed nation Index
Asad, Truth bites -
Grid collapsing has nothing to do with regular power outages...just read the articles on power outages in US when smallest of storms hit....does that make US a less developed country vis a vis china...your best friend China ( who doesn't give you anything of value, except those weapons you really cherish) can't even come closer to western countries in terms of development...
I live in Mumbai and haven't witnessed power cut even for a single day in last ten years...compared to US, the kind of storms that hit Mumbai during rains would make power trip anywhere, but not in Mumbai...
This incident exposes the American propaganda machine's claim of a 'shining India' to be the obscene lie that it is. This is a massive power blackout, but 40% of India's population never gets enough electricity to power a single light bulb..
I am in delhi office and I am having power in home and in office and commenting here ..The trick is power backup!.
@THE: Haha..Sir..Pakistan will always be the way it was yesterday or two days before that. Power failure in India will not make it superpower. By the way this unfortunate power crisis is because increase in energy demand due to growing economy of India. It sucks that the infrastructure is old not able to handle the demand.
.....and they call themselves an emerging power, "Joke of the Century".
Ok v have an Army Rule always here n Pakistan ,,,,,but whats wrong with India they have the so called democracy from 65 years .....
The power minister Sushil Shinde is tipped to become the next home minister of India. This man cannot secure the power grid; how is he going to secure the whole country if he does become the home minister?
living without electricity is the worst ever feeling and no people of any country deserve it.....India needs to plan today to tackle the growing demand and supply Gap or cripplin electricity,like we have in Paksitan,will be its fate.
It seems that load-shedding is 'contagious'...
Power CUT ...what a caption ... and then u go on and say ..its power outage ... hehehe ... U get that satisfaction that our neighbours too suffering with same what we are .... Giving wrong impression with wrong captions is not ethical reporting ... No wonder Pakistanis came to know of India's progress thru other sources than pakistani media.. but that was tooo late ..
The tripping of the north Indian grid led to collapse of the network. The cause could be deficit states overdrawing power beyond their allocation from national grid or some unknown technical glitch. It takes days to restart all the power generating units and connect with the network again, till then the black out.
Incredible India! Now our own Indian trolls who come here everyday to tell us how bad Pakistan is, can't write here since they don't have any power!!
And They say they are competing against China
'Shining' India, no wonder these comments section looks cleaner and free of trolls.