CISF cover withdrawn from discoms

Sources said the force,since it was first deployed in December 2006,with 115 men guarding one of the power companies,has been increasingly witnessing the issue of the execution of law and order duties. “At various places where joint teams went for searches,attacks by locals took place and CISF personnel had to take care of the situation and even ended up doing cordon duties,” sources said.

The CISF has been insisting that it is not mandated to check law and order problems. The force had temporarily withdrawn its personnel from the discoms before the Lok Sabha polls,which led to the Delhi government stepping in and writing to the Home Ministry,asking for an immediate redeployment.

Law and order duties,which include crowd control,had become “routine” for the force,the sources said.

Several meetings were held between all stakeholders,the Delhi government,the Home Ministry and the CISF,after which it was decided recently to withdraw the force. Though CISF officers declined to comment on the development,sources said the men relieved from discom duty could now be used for providing security to private enterprises.

Power situation normal

The power situation in the Capital was reported to be normal on Thursday,with no loadshedding being carried out at any place. The maximum loadshedding at peak hours was only 13 MW,power officials said. They also said a load of 3,927 MW in the last 24 hours was met successfully. No outages were reported from any part of the Capital. “The availability of power from generating stations within Delhi was 1,252 MW. The normal availability from generating stations in Delhi is 1,250 MW. Availability from Central Sector stations was 2,931 MW,” an official said.