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India restores power after huge blackouts
August 1, 2012, Wednesday
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Online Edition
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INDIA restored its power supplies today after two days of massive outages that blacked out half the country, but fears remained that the grid could again collapse under the strain of over-demand.
India's electricity network was back at full capacity after three regional grids failed yesterday in the country's worst power crisis that left more than 600 million people without supplies.
"It is a very difficult and challenging situation, and solutions will have to be found," new Power Minister Veerappa Moily said after confirming that the northern, eastern and north-eastern networks were back on line.
"I'm not going to start with a blame game. The center and the states will have to work together on this," he added, as wary consumers who are used to regular load-shedding braced for the possibility of more serious disruption.
Hundreds of miners were trapped underground for hours in the eastern states of West Bengal and Jharkhand yesterday, metro services were stopped temporarily in the capital New Delhi and hundreds of trains were held up nationwide.
Traffic snarled in cities as traffic lights failed and hospitals and airports had to switch to back-up power.
"On Monday the government said that this will never happen again but on Tuesday they proved themselves wrong. How can you trust them anymore?" said Revathi Nair, a 32-year-old manager with a five-star hotel in central Delhi.
Former power minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who was promoted to home minister yesterday in a reshuffle announced in the midst of the crisis, said India should be more grateful for the efforts of its engineers and bureaucrats.
"Where in America the grid doesn't get repaired for four days, here we repair the grid in several hours," he told reporters, repeating a boast that India had been more reactive than the US, which suffered a huge power failure in 2003.
"You should appreciate us, the way work is done in the power ministry," he added.
Today's newspapers were predictably critical of the government, saying it lacked the political will to implement long called-for reforms in the power sector to boost production and sort out near-bankrupt state distributors.
India's electricity network was back at full capacity after three regional grids failed yesterday in the country's worst power crisis that left more than 600 million people without supplies.
"It is a very difficult and challenging situation, and solutions will have to be found," new Power Minister Veerappa Moily said after confirming that the northern, eastern and north-eastern networks were back on line.
"I'm not going to start with a blame game. The center and the states will have to work together on this," he added, as wary consumers who are used to regular load-shedding braced for the possibility of more serious disruption.
Hundreds of miners were trapped underground for hours in the eastern states of West Bengal and Jharkhand yesterday, metro services were stopped temporarily in the capital New Delhi and hundreds of trains were held up nationwide.
Traffic snarled in cities as traffic lights failed and hospitals and airports had to switch to back-up power.
"On Monday the government said that this will never happen again but on Tuesday they proved themselves wrong. How can you trust them anymore?" said Revathi Nair, a 32-year-old manager with a five-star hotel in central Delhi.
Former power minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who was promoted to home minister yesterday in a reshuffle announced in the midst of the crisis, said India should be more grateful for the efforts of its engineers and bureaucrats.
"Where in America the grid doesn't get repaired for four days, here we repair the grid in several hours," he told reporters, repeating a boast that India had been more reactive than the US, which suffered a huge power failure in 2003.
"You should appreciate us, the way work is done in the power ministry," he added.
Today's newspapers were predictably critical of the government, saying it lacked the political will to implement long called-for reforms in the power sector to boost production and sort out near-bankrupt state distributors.
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