No power for 13 hours as Northern Grid crashes

GURGAON: The city went without power for several hours after the Northern Grid crashed early Monday, plunging eight states into complete darkness. Several areas in the city didn't have electricity for at least 13 hours. Gurgaon already runs on a 20% power deficit on any given day.
Angry residents blamed the government, both state and central, and said no concrete steps have been taken so far despite Haryana facing a perennial power crunch.
The tripping of the 400kV Bina-Gwalior line, which flows into Agra-Bareilly at 2:35am, wreaked havoc on the power generation and transmission systems leading to shut down of all major power plants including hydro power stations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Chandigarh. The immediate impact of the grid collapse was shortage of around 32,000MW power.
Vinod Chibber, a resident of Saraswati Kunj, said "There has been no electricity since 2 o'clock last night. We have been facing massive power cuts for the past two months. The residents have spent Rs 40 lakh for installing a new transformer, high and low tension wires. The electricity rates have also gone up by a rupee." Chibber said the governments, both central and state, have failed miserably and the right time has come for a change .
Residents had to battle heat and humidity all through the night.
T N Kaul, president of the Ardee City RWA, said "Power went around 2:30am. Many people don't have power backup, with only 2-3% residents having a generator and inverters, whose charge was over in 7-8 hours." The government needs to take immediate action to resolve the severe water and power shortage.
Maleeha Alvi, another resident of Ardee City, said, "We face at least 5-6 hours of power cuts daily. Electricity came only after 13 hours after it snapped at 2:30 am. How long will inverters and generators run? Water shortage is an another perennial problem."
Residents of Sushant Lok and Sector 56 too were without power for several hours after it went at 3:00am on Monday. Suhasini, a resident of Sector 56, said, "Our society has back-up, that's why we did not face much of a problem, but there was no power for around 7 hours in the morning."
People also complained about disruption in the Metro services. Medha, a student, said "I missed my exam as Metro services to Delhi were hit early in the day due to the sudden power failure."
Chaos on roads as signals go off
The effect of the Northern Power Grid failure was felt in the city's traffic movement too. Dysfunctional traffic signals nearly doubled the waiting time at intersections. Police claimed that traffic was under control despite congestion. The traffic situation in old Gurgaon was bad at Mahavir Chowk and surrounding areas. A road safety officer said that the traffic department had increased the number of cops at troubled spots. "IFFCO Chowk, Signature Tower and also Gurgaon Faridabad road were worst affected," he said.