Power protest jams traffic

Politics over power and water crisis in the city led to a chock-a-bloc traffic in south Delhi as the Congress party staged a major road blockade on the issue on Thursday.

 The Aam Aadmi Party also submitted memorandums to Delhi Lieutenant Governer and Union Power Minister on outages.

Congress party’s city unit organised the road blockade at Khanpur area in south Delhi at about 10 am, when hundreds of party workers gathered and shouted slogans against BJP and AAP leaders for the power and water crisis in the city.

“Piyush Goel (Union Power minister) is not able to give electricity to India’s capital, how will he give electricity to the rest of the country? He must leave his position”, said Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee’s (DPCC) chief spokesperson, Mukesh Sharma.

He also said that AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, “had no understanding of the ground-level problems in Delhi”.

Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and former south Delhi MP Sajjan Kumar also joined the protest with hundreds of supporters. The agitators carried hand fans and earthen pots to protest and also burnt the effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

People commuting through Badarpur-Mehrauli-Chirag Dilli faced problems as traffic came to a standstill due to blockage of Khanpur Chowk. “Due to the jam, no auto driver is ready to take me to Greater Kailash. Even if they are ready, they are charging extra money,” said Shivani, a commuter.

Meanwhile, AAP MPs submitted memorandums to the Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on outages in the city. Party MPs from Punjab – Dharmvira Gandhi, Sadhu Singh, Harinder Singh Khalsa and Bhagwant Mann met Jung and demanded uninterrupted power supply to Delhi.

Continuing its sharp attack on Delhi’s private power distribution companies (discoms), the party said, “It is beyond any reasonable understanding why both the Centre and the Delhi administration are extremely hesitant to fix the accountability of the discoms.”

Goyal visits Bawana

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s midnight visit to the Bawana gas turbine power plant sent the Delhi babus in a tizzy.

During his two hour long surprise visit on Thursday, Goyal inspected the functioning of plant for peak power demand.

The plant is generating more than 450 MW electricity a day after getting additional gas following Goyal’s order.

“The minister visited the plant to know whether the plant is functioning properly on not,” said a senior Delhi government official.

Outages continued in the city due to non-functioning of Badarpur Thermal Power Station (BTPS)-Noida-Ghazipur 220 KV line. The peak power demand was recorded at 5253 MW at 2.45 pm on Thursday.

“No load shedding was carried out in north Delhi where Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) supplies electricity. However, load shedding was continued in the areas of east, central and south Delhi,” said a senior power department official.