Commonwealth Games 2010 next year made Delhi a mess in 2009

If you live in south Delhi, brace for frequent outages till October 12. Delhi Transco has said that the ongoing work on a Commonwealth Games project will lead to temporary shutdown of a line that supplies power to several south Delhi colonies.

According to officials, the 220KV Maharani Bagh-Lodhi Road line, which feeds areas like Lodhi Road, Defence Colony, Nizamuddin, Lajpat Nagar, South Extension, Niti Bagh, Uday Park, Gulmohar Park, Maharani Bagh, East of Kailash and adjoining areas, will be shut from Tuesday morning. ‘‘We have to increase the height of the line to facilitate work on elevated Barapullah Nallah project. This will lead to a line shutdown for about two weeks. Discoms have been asked to back feed from other sources,’’ said a Transco spokesperson.
While discoms have assured government of making adequate arrangements for this period, experts are concerned about situation deteriorating if power demand suddenly surges. ‘‘Right now the demand is below 3,500MW mark but if it suddenly rises, then there may be extended power cuts in these areas,’’ said a senior official.

Power department officials said that since the entire electricity network in the city was inter-linked, it would not be a problem for the discom to shift supply from one source to another. ‘‘They can get supply from other lines and this has been done in the past too,’’ said a source.