Get this: Delhi, NCR faced power outages at least twice a day in June

New Delhi: With the national capital region reeling under long spells of outages, a survey has found that power cuts occurred at least twice a day and up to four hours sometimes with worst hit being Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Noida.

As per the survey, more than 80 per cent of its 12,000 respondents said that on an average power outages across Delhi and NCR took place at least twice a day.

The survey by Market Xcel Data Matrix Pvt Ltd was conducted last month with sample size of 3,000 respondents each from Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad.

Forty percent of the respondents, most of them from Ghaziabad, followed by Delhi and Gurgaon, complained of one to two hours of power outages on an average, while those from Noida said the power cut exceeded four hours in a day.

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There was no particular pattern of outages determined as to whether it was more on weekdays or weekend, however, 36 percent respondents in Noida said the power cuts were mostly on weekends.

At least 15 percent claimed that power cuts occurred mostly during or after noon while 10 percent said outages took place in the evenings, especially in Gurgaon, Noida followed by Delhi.

When asked about the reasons for increasing cases of power outages, people who participated in the survey blamed poor quality of power plant equipment, poor utilisation of generating equipment and poor performance by electricity department employees.

In Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad, delay in construction of power projects is also considered an important reason While 40-41 percent believe that poor quality of power plant equipment, maintenance and operation, about 31 percent blamed it on the poor performance by power plant employees.

About 28-26 percent also said the reason behind long outages could be increasing demand and delay in construction and approval of power projects.

Other reasons cited by respondents include transmission loss, excessive consumption of power which leads to tripping of transformers, short circuits or natural weather phenomenon such as rain, thunderstorm or dust storms.

The survey’s respondents included 46 per cent women and 54 per cent male population with 33 percent within the age group of 26-35 years, 30 per cent between 36-45 years and 37 per cent between 18-25 years.

More than 50 per cent people feel that the scenario has worsened since last year but around 20 per cent feel it is same as last year.

According to power department, the maximum power demand in Delhi was recorded at 5,925 MW on July 15, which is a new record of power consumption in the city against the previous highest power consumption of 5810 MW on July 11.

Power department officials had claimed there was no shortage of power in Delhi and outages were taking place due to problems in distribution network of BSES discoms.

The rise in electricity demand caused power cuts ranging from one to four hours.

According to official figures, power demand in 1905 was just two mega watt which had increased to 27 MW in 1947. The peak demand was recorded at 86 MW in 1961 and 259 MW in 1971.

It had touched 563 MW in 1981 and rose to 1,536 MW in 1992. In 1997, the demand increased to 2,303 MW and further to 2,879 MW in 2001. In 2002, it had gone up to 3,097 MW while in 2007, it touched 4,030 MW.

While the demand went up to 4,408 MW in 2009, it reached 4,720 MW in 2010. In 2011, it had increased to 5,028 mega watts and it went up to 5,642 MW in 2012.

Residents of Delhi and NCR are facing a harrowing time due to frequent power outages and this problem has become even worse because of the absence of a government in the city.

About 48 per cent respondents, most in Ghaziabad and Gurgaon, have complained of sleepless nights and their inability to work the next day due to tiredness and sleep deprivation.

Some also complained of mosquito menace, on health care centres, disruption in power operated public transport systems like metro, trains.

They also said security becomes a major concern for people when street lights are non-operational causing inconvenience to residents.

Over half of those who participated in the survey owned a generator or inverter at home to tackle this menace.

But about 30 per cent of respondents were under the income group of Rs 10000-20000 per month, 28 per cent in Rs 20001-30000 per month and 25 per cent within Rs 30000 to Rs 50000 income group.

In a budget that proposed no new taxes for Delhites, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley this week announced Rs 260 crore in power subsidies “to provide relief to targeted consumers on account of increase in tariffs and to ensure that the poor and marginalised should not suffer”.

The Rs 36,776 crore budget for Delhi was presented in Parliament as Delhi is currently under President’s rule. The government announced a subsidy of Rs 1.20 per unit up to 200 units and 80 paisa per unit for the 201-400 units slab to small power consumers.

PTI