600 million people hit; Power crisis now trips 21 states
Power crisis that hit Northern India turned into a larger blackout Tuesday to affect as many as 21 states not just in the North but also in the East and Northeast, paralyzing essential services such as rail and metro operations, besides causing major traffic snarls. “Grid incident occurred at 1 p.m., affecting the northern, eastern and northeastern grids.

The system is under restoration,” said the official website of the eastern grid, among such systems managed by the state-run Power System Operation Corp Ltd.

The states affected Tuesday were Northern Grid: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Chandigarh.

Northeastern grid: Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Eastern grid: West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Sikkim. These states account for half of India’s 1.2 billion populations.

Power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who has now been assigned the home ministry, had constituted a committee to probe the failure on Monday.

He attributed the collapse on second straight day to overdrawing of power by some states and said efforts were on to fetch electricity from other regions.

“Alternative arrangements have been made. I have put all my men at work. We are getting power from western grid. We will try to restore services of the Metro and the railways first,” Shinde told reporters.

Shillong Correspondent Adds: Nagaland along with the rest of Northeastern states Tuesday was hit by a major power failure due to power tripped in the Northeastern grid.

The Northeastern grid caters to the power supply of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

The power supply was restored after engineers rectified the supply lines. Sources in Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL), Shillong said supply of electricity was disrupted in the state from 1.2 p.m. after the eastern grid failed.

All functional units of eastern and north eastern grid stopped generation from 1 p.m. because of technical problems in the grids, a MeECL official said.

States warned not to overdraw more power than assigned quota
Expressing confidence that the power would be restored soon, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Tuesday issued a stern warning to states which overdraw more electricity than their assigned quota.

“The grid failure maybe because of failure of grid connectivity, or several other reasons. So, taking note of that, we appointed a committee yesterday.

The states, which overdraw more electricity than their quota will be penalized,” he said shortly before being made Union Home Minister in what television channels called a “paper reshuffle” of the Union Cabinet.

Shinde said the situation has now been normalized 45 percent in northern region, 35 percent in eastern region and 100 percent in northeastern region.

Meanwhile, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Government and two other states – Rajasthan and Haryana-to explain the overdrawing of power and for blatantly flouting of norms governing access to electricity/power supply, which led to grid failures in the northern and eastern parts of India.

As of now, Uttar Pradesh is overdrawing electricity by five percent, Haryana by 51 percent and Rajasthan by 18 percent. The second blackout in two days affected as many as 21 states in north, east and northeast India, paralysing rail and metro operations, and causing major traffic snarls.

The chairman and managing director of Power Grid Corp of India, R.N. Nayak, said close to 50 percent of power had been restored in the northeastern region and 20 percent in the north.

He said a full inquiry would reveal the nature of the problem. He added that every effort was being made restore supplies fully by 7-7.30 p.m.

Nayak also said the failure was due to overdraw of power by some states and that a full inquiry would reveal the nature of the problem.

He added that every effort was being made restore supplies fully by 7-7.30 p.m. He said excess power drawn by one state had a cascading effect on the three grids. He, however, did not name which state had overdrawn power.

Power Grid Corp and its subsidiaries buy electricity from various generating firms, including those outside India like in neighbouring Bhutan, and transmit such power via their network to the distribution companies, which in turn sell it to end-consumers.

Nayak said Power Grid officials were analysing data from more than 100 sub-stations to understand the causes of such a massive outage so that such breakdowns could be avoided in the future.

Over 300 trains affected
There was, however, little respite for some 300,000 rail passengers, who were stuck in over 300 trains across eight states, after the power failure crippled such operations across six railway zones in the country. “Failure in the northern and eastern power grid has affected railway operations across six of our railway zones. Over 300 passenger trains are stuck,” Anil Saxena, additional director general for public relations in the railway ministry, told IANS.

The Delhi Metro suspended service on all the six lines as power tripped for the second straight day. It normally operates over 2,700 trips a day, covering a total some 70,000 km, to carry around 1.8 million passengers on a week day.

A spokesperson for Delhi Metro said after the services were suspended, entry to stations was halted and the trains under operation were brought to the nearest Metro station for evacuation.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority also helped in evacuation.A couple of hours later, Metro services resumed partially.