South Delhi faces power cuts as birds cause short-circuit

Residents of South Delhi woke up to power cuts on Thursday morning and had a harrowing time as the electricity supply did not resume until four hours later. HT reports.

Residents of South Delhi woke up to power cuts on Thursday morning and had a harrowing time as the electricity supply did not resume until four hours later.

HT Image

Areas like Greater Kailash I and II, Kalkaji, CR Park, Gulmohar Park, Safdarjung Enclave, Green Park, South Extension and Okhla faced power cuts which began around 7am. “We thought it (power) would come back within an hour. But then it did not for several hours and then we were worried,” said Sushma Khanna, a CR Park resident.

Residents made frenetic calls to complaint centres, where they were told that there was some technical snag.

It turns out that some birds had kept some twigs on the high tension cable from the Delhi Transco’s 220 KV substation at Okhla, whose transformer short-circuited and promptly tripped.

“As a cascading effect, it also tripped the feeders of BSES Rajdhani, which draws from this substation. The supply could not be restored immediately. It took a few hours,” said a senior official.

“We heard that there is a new substation at Masjid Moth, which can help in times of such crisis. But it looks like the power company is not making full use of it,” Arnab Sinha, a resident of Kalkaji. The maximum power demand stood at 4682 MW.