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THE NATION:
POWER FAILURE
Black
Out
Yet another
major grid failure serves as a reminder of how deep-rooted the rot in
India's power sector is
By
Rohit Saran and Sayantan Chakravarty
Waking
up with no power or going without it for an hour or two is no big deal
in India, least of all in Delhi. But January 2, 2001 was different. At
4:44 a.m. that day eight north Indian states descended into a darkness
that stretched 10 hours and more, blacking out streets, halting over 20
trains, grinding 24 major industries to a halt, blowing away more than
Rs 700 crore in losses to industry and governments and eating away 15,500
MW of power. Unprecedentedly, the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the prime minister's
residence were also rendered powerless for 30 minutes.
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| Most
power plants lack maintenance and renovation |
What is not
unprecedented is the scale of such breakdowns. Stretch your memory: January
1, 1997 had greeted northern India with a similar chill. Only, the power
grid had collapsed twice in three days, on January 1 and 3. More recently,
the eastern power grid failed in July last year. At least one region of
the country receives a major power jolt every year (see box).
By now even
the reasons have begun to sound familiar. A region or a state draws more
or less power than it should; the system cannot handle such fluctuations;
it shuts down; an inquiry is ordered; a report is submitted. The end.
No compliance. Quips D.P. Sinha, member, Central Electricity Regulatory
Commission (CERC), who earlier as member, transmission, with CERC, had
headed several inquiries: "We have gone through this so many times
without learning any lessons."
For the
uninitiated, "grid" is a loose term for a network of transmission
lines of varying voltage capacities. India doesn't have a nationwide grid
yet that can transport power from one part of the country to the other
quickly and efficiently. Instead, there are five grids-northern, western,
southern, eastern and north-eastern-which are loosely connected and operated
by the Power Grid Corporation (PGC). A grid collapses, or the transmission
stops, if one of the three happens: equipment fails, there's a sudden
rise or fall in power load or due to a natural calamity.
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METRO TODAY
As
the Government brings in more people and mops more money in taxes, it
must be seen to be rewarding those who come forth and pay up, writes India
Today Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 