SOS to disaster cell after Metro,traffic halted

Delhi blamed its neighbours for the chaos,accusing UP,Haryana and Rajasthan of drawing more power from the grid than their allocated share.

“Prior to disturbance,UP,Haryana and Rajasthan were drawing more than their allocated power to the tune of 600 MW,950 MW and 750 MW,respectively. However,the system frequency was 49.8 Hz,which was within the permissible operating limit. Delhi was under-drawing 415 MW at the time of grid disturbance,” an official said.

Officials said supply to essential services like Delhi Metro,airport,Railways and AIIMS was restored by 3 pm.

“Almost 80 per cent power was restored by 7 pm,” the official said.

Delhi Jal Board CEO Debashree Mukherjee said: “All water treatment plants were shut down for want of power after normal supply this morning. Though all of them have now resumed production,the evening supply has been affected. If the power situation remains normal,we hope the morning supplies on Wednesday will not be affected.”

The panic button was pressed after the Metro service was suspended abruptly. The Delhi Police and DMRC contacted the Delhi government’s disaster management department for assistance. District commissioners,SDMs and all staff,together with civil defence volunteers,were activated for crowd control.

“We got a call from the Delhi Police about the grid failure and possible chaos since people had to be evacuated from Metro trains. Fire brigades for search-and-rescue and ambulances were also activated. The situation was treated as a disaster because it was beyond the control of any single agency. It required coordination of all agencies,” a senior government official said.

Emergency support functionaries were put on high alert after the DMRC also contacted the disaster management department. “Metro asked for assistance in evacuation. We asked the DTC to take out its surplus fleet to handle the additional rush,” the official said.

All power stations in Delhi tripped simultaneously,resulting in total collapse of power generation. But the Delhi system got “islanded” from the rest of the grid and survived with some units of the gas turbine power station.

The power demand just before the failure was 3,699 MW and the total generation of Delhi’s own power plants was 1,293 MW. Delhi was drawing 2,406 MW from the grid.

Shakti Sinha,CMD of Delhi Transco Ltd,said the power supply was normal by 7 pm.

“Restoration of power in Delhi started at 1.15 pm with synchronisation of more units of the gas turbine power station. Delhi started getting power from the Northern Grid at 2.10 pm through the 400 KV Agra-Ballabhgarh-Bamnauli line,”Sinha said.