Delhi power crisis: Dikshit did not plan in advance, says Piyush Goyal

Following an emergency meeting on the growing power crisis in the capital, Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal said he would ensure that Delhi receives 400 MW more power by 8 pm tonight, and blamed the woes of the sweltering city on the ‘policy and development paralysis of an insensitive government’. Addressing a media conference a short while ago, Goyal slammed the Sheila Dikshit government for completely neglecting the concerns of Delhi’s power sector and state grid, saying the current situation would have been completely avoidable had it not been for the indifference of her regime. [caption id=“attachment_1563913” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Piyush Goyal blamed Dikshit’s insensitive government for the crisis[/caption] “We had a government for the last 15 years which was insensitive to the growing demands of the people of Delhi. Any good government has to plan in advance, has to assess growth going forward to ensure capacity. This was not done,” said the minister, adding that the unusually hot summer had pushed electricity demand to a whopping 5800 MW which the grid just could not provide. The power minister said that the immediate fix for Delhi’s power woes lay in the Bawana-Rohini gas line, which could power the grid with enough gas to provide more electricity. However he said while the Bawana plant could provide enough gas for even 1100 MW of power, the problem lay in the fact that the defunct and overloaded grid could only handle 400 MW of power. Furthermore, Goyal said a storm that struck the city had resulted in further damages to power distribution lines that were already in a state of complete disrepair. “The problem is not that Delhi has no power. It is just that there is a distribution problem”, he said. Goyal also appealed to the people of the city to be patient, adding that there was no avoiding load shedding and power outages for now. He said that he was also looking at long term solutions to ensure that the same situation did not arise next summer, and asked parties to stop politicising the issue. “The Lt governor has already assured me of his support in this regard. Hopefully Delhi will soon have a stable state government that can implement more sustainable solutions,” he said.