Centre leaves Delhi in dark

The Capital is in a bad fix. After asking for 350 MW of extra power from the Centre this summer, it will get only 100 MW in the middle of what threatens to be one of the hottest summers in recent years.

The Capital is in a bad fix. After asking for 350 MW of extra power from the Centre this summer, it will get only 100 MW in the middle of what threatens to be one of the hottest summers in recent years.

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In a meeting with Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and top officials of Delhi government, Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde expressed his helplessness in sanctioning more power from the central unallocated quota of power.

“We will request (for it) again. It is getting difficult for us to manage,” said Delhi Power Secretary Rajendra Kumar. “We have to look for other sources of power now. I will call a meeting of the discoms to see what can be done.”

This compounds Delhi’s problem mainly because the government had counted on this source of power as part of its strategy to tackle rising demand this summer.

Usually Delhi gets around 20-22 per cent from this unallocated pool of around 1,400 MW power from the Central sector.

A statement from the power department said although the distribution companies had arranged 1,000 MW, while Delhi was producing around 1,000 MW and Centre’s allocated quote was sending around 2,000 MW, it was not sufficient.

The peak power demand in Delhi is 15 per cent more than what it was this time last year. In the past one month, the total energy conservation has been 20 per cent more than the same period last year.

Dikshit had sought the additional power saying that this was an important year for Delhi since it was the host for the Commonwealth Games.

“All eyes are on us,” Kumar told HT.