Three power
grids in northern, eastern and north eastern India
collapsed around noon today plunging 20 states and 2 Union
Territories of India in
darkness. The northern grid collapsed yesterday putting almost whole of north India into
darkness. The situation instead of improving worsened today with all three
grids linking 22 states collapsing. Six hundred million people, half of Indian
population, had been affected. The astonishing part of this massive failure was
that nobody knew exactly why it happened. Even those in 'power' did not know why
half of the nation became powerless!
Some of the
blame had been given to few states for overdrawing power from the affected
grids. Putting a stop to a possible start of the blame game the new Minister of Power said that the power situation had to be managed better for development of
the country. In fact, in a major cabinet reshuffle today P Chidambaram, the
erstwhile Home Minister, was given the Finance portfolio; Sushil Kumar Shinde,
the erstwhile Power Minister, was given the Home portfolio and the Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily
was given additional charge of the Power portfolio. The reshuffle became
necessary after the former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was elected as the
new President of India.
As per latest
reports power had been fully restored in the north eastern region and in the
rest of the states it was likely to be restored within few hours. With drought fears looming large in several states due to scanty rains the present power
disaster gains more significance. Rain deficit in Mumbai and in many parts of Maharashtra has got even bigger in the month of July, 2012.
As a great relief all of the 200 miners
trapped in four underground minefield of West Bengal
due to the power failure had been rescued. Train services in many parts of the
country had been in complete disarray, apart from the problems faced by more
than half of Indian population.
Let there be Power
to the nation and to the people!
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