44 degrees, powerless: June 2010 is hell for Delhi

Amid impossibly hot and humid conditions, the power demand in the city touched an all-time high of 4668 mega watt on Monday. Although the power department claimed that they met the demand successfully, power cuts of varying duration were reported in South, Central and East Delhi.

Amid impossibly hot and humid conditions, the power demand in the city touched an all-time high of 4668 mega watt on Monday. Although the power department claimed that they met the demand successfully, power cuts of varying duration were reported in South, Central and East Delhi.

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To meet the requirement, power department officials said discoms arranged additional power to the tune of 1,511 MW in the past 24 hours.

“The availability of power from generating stations within Delhi was 1129 MW. Availability from Central Sector Stations was to the tune of 2344 MW and through bilateral arrangements was 1059 MW. Most of the demand was met successfully,”said a senior official from the power department.

Most parts of East Delhi remained without power supply on Monday due to a technical snag in Indraprastha sub-station's transformer. The power supply was affected for more than four hours.

“There was power cut on an interval of every half an hour. Last night also we could not get proper sleep and today also it is the same story,” said Smriti Sah, a resident of Preet Vihar, East Delhi .

Areas such as Sarojini Nagar, R K Puram, Kidwai Nagar, Gole Market, DIZ area, among others, reeled from power cuts too.

“It is impossible to survive in such hot and humid conditions. It is already so hot and the erratic power supply is making it worse,” said Juhi Nagpal, a resident of R K Puram.

“We didn't have any power at Safdarjung Enclave for 10 hours," said Pankaj Agarwal, Secretary General, Delhi RWAs Joint Front.

Load shedding was carried out in many areas such as Krishna Nagar, Indrapratha extension, Gagan Vihar, Shahdara, Subhash Park on a rotational basis.

The last few days of June have seen the mercury rising to unbearable levels. The highest temperature on Monday was a scorching 44.1 degrees Celsius whereas the mercury touched 44.8 degrees on Sunday.

Monday's temperature was five degrees above what is normal for this time of the year. The minimum temperature, at 31.1 degrees, was also two degrees above normal.

Though Met officials have predicted thundershowers, the temperatures will continue to rise, they say.