Delhi blames Uttar Pradesh for power shortage

October 11th, 2011 - 12:06 am ICT by IANS  

New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) Faced with power shortage, the Delhi government Monday blamed the Mayawati-led Uttar Pradesh government for the power cuts witnessed in the capital since last week.

Delhi Power Minister Haroon Yusuf said the Uttar Pradesh government is consuming “much more electricity than what has been allocated to it”, which resulted in over-burdening of the Northern Grid, triggering outages in the capital.

“UP government was under-drawing the electricity during summers when the residents were facing power cuts up to 15 hours in a day. Now it is overdrawing the power when winters are about to start,” said Yusuf, who was addressing a press conference here.

When asked whether by overdrawing the power the Mayawati government is trying to keep the voters happy ahead of assembly elections, Yusuf quipped, “This act of UP government is punishable with heavy fines and the Delhi government will bring it to the notice of power ministry.”

Yusuf assured improved power supply in the capital in the next two to three days and said that the power generation units at Dadri and Badarpur have been urged to supply power in a full-fledged manner.

“Due to the unprecedented overdrawing of power by the UP government the frequency in the Northern Grid remained below accepted levels,” Yusuf said.

He said that over the weekend frequency in the Northern Grid has dipped to levels below which electricity rules bar states from overdrawing power, but Uttar Pradesh was still defaulting.

“UP overdrew up to 2,081 mega watts on Saturday, up to 1,982 mega watts on Sunday and up to 1,180 mega watts on Monday,” Yusuf said.

He said that Delhi’s power companies have been asked to arrange for more electricity.

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Politics |

Subscribe