Power Minister Moily to discuss grid failure with eight northern states

Union Power Minister Dr. M. Veerappa Moily will be meeting the chief ministers of eight northern states and administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh here on Monday during which the latter are expected to discuss issues surrounding electricity transmission and distribution.

Dr. Moily had last week called a meeting of chief ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi after the country witnessed one of the worst-ever power crises.

The new Power Minister had earlier assured the nation that the massive power outage due to transmission grid failure will not recur.

"Now, there is absolute normalcy... 100 per cent restoration has taken place and I can reassure the entire nation that what has happened all these two-three days will not recur... nothing will happen again," he told mediapersons last week.

Pushing the country into the worst power crisis, northern as well as eastern and north eastern grids collapsed last Tuesday, affecting over 60 crore people. This took place a day after the northern grid was restored following its failure.

The states affected included Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam, besides Union Territory of Chandigarh.

The reason for grid failure is, however, yet to be ascertained.

Corporate Affairs Minister Dr. Moily, who was given the additional charge of the Power Ministry after his predecessor Sushil Kumar Shinde was appointed country's Home Minister, has also restructured the expert panel to look into the massive failure of power transmission grids.

Dr. Moily has so far refused to blame any state for the grids' collapse. Shinde had earlier indicated that overdrawal of electricity by some states led to the fiasco. (ANI)