Taking a note of power outages in several parts of the Capital, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday summoned the power distribution companies and even warned them of stern action.
"Improve fast or face action," Dikshit warned the CEOs of the BSES Rajdhani Power ltd (BRPl) and BSES Yamuna Power limited (BYPl) as well as the senior officials of transmission utility, Delhi Transco limited (DTl).
Sending across a strong message, she said various stakeholders, especially the discoms and DTl should quit shifting responsibilities regarding power cuts. They should ensure uninterrupted supply to the city residents.
Dikshit, who summoned the CEOs of BRPl and BYPl to her residence, warned the two discoms of punitive action if they failed to improve supply immediately despite adequate availability of electricity.
The Chief Minister also warned the DTl to improve maintenance of its network as a number of major transmission lines, maintained by it had tripped in the last four days, causing long power cuts in various areas. Residents in West Delhi had to face outages for up to 10 hours on Friday due to tripping of a major line in Pappankalan.
Power Secretary Shakti Sinha, who was also present in the meeting, said the city has more power than the current demand and said that long outages are due to local faults and other technical problems in the distribution network.
Several areas across the city have been facing power cuts for upto six hours in the past few days, when maximum temperature was hovering around 45 degree Celsius, despite Government's claim of ensuring round-the-clock power supply.
The BSES discoms supply power to 70 per cent areas of the city, while Tata Power Delhi Distribution ltd (TPDDl) distributes power to around 25 per cent areas, and New Delhi Municipal Corporation supplies power to lutyens Bungalow Zone. Officials said that the Government has not received any complaint of power cuts in areas under TPDDl and NDMC.
"The city has surplus power in the range of 500 to 800 MW. So, we will not tolerate any power cuts. The discoms and DTl have to improve their coordination to avoid power cuts," Dikshit said while slamming both the BSES discoms and DTl for not showing 'sensitivity' towards the problems faced by residents. Both BSES discoms and DTl have been told to carry out joint inspection of their distribution network.
Unhappy at the complaint redressal system of the BSES discoms, Dikshit asked them to give wide publicity to their complaint redressal mechanism and customer care numbers.
Officials said the DTl representatives informed the Chief Minister that a major transformer will be set up at Hastsal by June 7 and another at Matiala by June 30 to improve power supply in West Delhi.
Meanwhile, the soaring heat on Sunday pushed the power demand in the city to over 4955 MW.
last year, the peak demand had gone beyond 5,600 MW. Power department officials said the maximum demand is likely to go beyond 6,000 MW this summer.