Powerless Delhi sizzles at 43° C

The mercury touched 43 degrees Celsius, a couple of degrees more for this time of the season. The minimum temperature, recorded early morning, was 30.3 degrees Celsius, 3 degrees above normal, reports HT Correspondent.

After a brief lull of about a week, the sweltering heat was back to make life miserable in Delhi on Monday.

HT Image

The mercury touched 43 degrees Celsius, a couple of degrees more for this time of the season. The minimum temperature, recorded early morning, was 30.3 degrees Celsius, 3 degrees above normal.

The weatherman also said things will not going get better anytime soon.

Power cuts made things worse

“There was no electricity in the morning and afternoon, when we needed it the most,” said MS Chugh (40), of the Residents’ Welfare Association in South Extension in South Delhi.

The power cuts were frequent, with duration ranging between 30 minutes and 2 hours, several times during the day. “There was no power in the afternoon. We repeatedly called the helplines of the power distributing company,” said Arti Srivastava (35), a housewife in Vasant Vihar. “But there was no help from them.”

This despite Delhi receiving an additional 579 Mega Watt (MW) of power — around 20 per cent of its usual daily need — from the Central government less than three weeks ago to manage the grim scenario.

Before summer this year, the Delhi government had claimed it was ready to tackle a demand of 4,500 MW.

Heavily depending on the power-guzzling air-cooling apparatus, Delhiites worked up the season’s highest power demand of 3,914 MW recorded in the afternoon.

Unable to meet the demand, the power distribution companies had to effect load shedding of around 100 MW when the demand was at its peak, the Delhi Transco, the power transmission utility, said in a statement.

Gurgaon in the dark

RK Sharma, a resident of DLF City (III) said power supply in their area was snapped at 10.00 pm on Sunday and was restored only on Monday evening. “We were told that one transformer had developed serious snags,” he said.

Southcity too reportedly suffered power cut for more than 24 hours two days ago because of Metro construction.

RS Jain, a resident of Sector 14, Gurgaon, said power and water supply in his area has been badly affected for the last eight days.