Exact reason for India's massive power outage not known yet

Government mum as truth could spur huge political impact, says source.

Power was restored back to normalcy almost within a day’s time but reasons floating regarding the grid failure are all speculations at the moment.

There were power outages in the Northern and Eastern States of India on two days, Monday and Tuesday affecting almost 300-350Mn people. The second day affected even the North Eastern States. Three grids had collapsed in all. The outage had complete affected all the infrastructure be it trains/ buses/ offices/ factories etc. Monday’s power outage affected roughly 7-8 states but Tuesday’s jumped to almost 20.

According to Rahul Desai, Assistant Manager for Marketing of Larsen & Toubro, a multinational conglomerate in India, almost the exact reason for the failure is not known.

"Some of the reason floating is that due to peak load demand, certain states had withdrawn excess power from the grids, thereby leading to the grids getting tripped and failing. This might also have been due to the scanty rainfall received so far and also the fact that most of the infrastructure is inadequate and old and might have not been able to handle the load. Also there is a huge gap between the demand and supply. In the last 01 year, there were only a handful of generation projects that were sanctioned against the requirement," he said.

"I personally think the central and state government are very guarded in their responses and future course action as the truth will have a big political impact in the country which will affect the coalition govt.[this has already become a political issue] but the fact remains that there is a growing need to bridge the gap between the demand and supply. Also, there is a need to resolve some of the pending issues in clearing the proposal (financing / coal or gas supply / environment / tariffs etc) as well as upgrading the current infrastructure," he added.

Desai said that the supply to the grids were restored back to normalcy almost within a day’s time due to the immense pressure on the government. and the image that was created by the media – both local and international putting the country’s and the government’s reputation at stake.

"This is definitely affected India’s image as an upcoming destination for business & investments and also India’s own aim at becoming a super power in the future as power is very critical to India’s growth. Trade was definitely affected in the process. Trains being an important stakeholder were stalled at several locations thereby affecting movement of goods and people. Many industries and offices were closed. Essential services like hospitals/airports were running with use of back up generators and supply from pvt. players," he said.

"The Indian government will be under pressure to make some capital investment and resolve some of the pending issues in the power sector. Since many of the public sector distribution companies are under debts, the investments will add a burden to govt’s already stretched fiscal position. Infrastructure improvement in the transmission and distribution area along with generating will become a key focus in the time to come," he added.