Did Uttar Pradesh's grid indiscipline lead to power crisis?

New Delhi, Aug 1: With the power grid collapse that led to power outage for as many as 60 crore people across 20 states, the crisis seem to be far from over. With the Power Ministry downplaying the incident calling it 'normal', the blame game has just started to find out who was responsible for this domino effect that led to the Northern, Eastern and North-eastern grid collapsing.

The fingers are pointing towards Uttar Pradesh for drawing more power from the central pool that ultimately led to the Northern grid collapsing. The trouble only escalated when the crashing of the northern grid led to the falling of the Eastern and North eastern grid plunging several states without power.

In the wake of the crisis, former Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has been quoted as saying that some states are drawing electricity over and above their limits. He added, "This morning only, I was told (by officials) that about 3,000 MW extra power has been over drawn from the Eastern Grid. We have given the direction to either stop it (overdrawal) or take action against them."

Uttar Pradesh is power starved and with this accusation of not adhering to grid discipline could evoke some sharp criticism from the Centre. The Power Ministry had laid the blame on UP for drawing more power that led to the crisis. Following the crisis, UP CM Akhilesh Yadav had sacked the chairman of UP Power Grid Corporation.

Punjab who was also blamed for drawing more power leading to the Eastern grid collapse washed its hands off citing that it was "minimum" compared to other states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

UP has, however, claimed that the accusations were only a tactic to malign the state's image.

OneIndia News