By Satyendra ThakurIf you have watched news channels in the last 48 hours, you could not have missed noticing Delhi citizens complaining about power crisis.Government inaction and irresponsible usage of power by educated class has resulted in this crisis.It is worth to note that Delhi even being a small state has larger electricity requirement than many other cities.The reason is simple, many of Delhites worked in high paying companies have capability to buy AC, Inverter and other electrical appliances in their home which draws higher power load. It is also worth to note that educated class of Delhi and its previous governments never paid attention to Green/Renewable energy as alternative source of Electricity. Delhi stands at 27th Place in Indian States when talked about use of Renewable energy in addressing Electricity need of state.Politics over power crisis was initiated by Congress and AAP when they started protesting against Union ministers for not handling power crisis in Delhi.Why is Delhi Facing Power and Water Crisis?Every Year Delhi has faced Power and water crisis due to high demand in the summer season. This year it is increased due to a storm that hit Delhi on May 30.It damaged planes, crippled road traffic, metro services, hitting power supply and around 24 flights were averted. Transmission and distribution network which supply electricity from Power Generation facility to Electrical Substations and consumers was affected. Three main transmission lines of 220 kv namely Gopalpur-Mandola, Bamnauli-Papankalan and Bawana-Rohini got severely damaged which affected power supply to East Delhi, West Delhi and Central Delhi.Authorities in DERC which Regulate power in Delhi confirmed that it will take 3 weeks to fix all the lines which are affected by storm. People also need to be aware that high loads hamper maintenance of the lines and due to this high load electrical equipment doesn’t get time to cool down which results in system failure. As the electricity crisis increases, it affects water plants which in turn results in water crisis. Is this crisis worse than the ones in earlier years?Yes, Due to storm this year power crisis has increased, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Delhi has been facing power crisis since 1996 and no permanent solution has been found.Transmission and distribution lines were working fine till now, then what suddenly happened? During Summer, transmission and distribution network gets affected due to high loads and heat, and this year it was more affected due to the storm.Why could the Government not fix it in last 10 days?It is completely wrong to say that Power Ministry didn't look at this issue earlier. After the storm, Power Minister held meeting with officials and released a report on it-Power Crisis in Delhi is due to failure of transmission and distribution network, not just lack of generation. Power requirement can be fixed by borrowing from Central power Units or other States, but fixing the transmission & distribution network requires weeks.When will this crisis end?Power Ministry along with Delhi Government says in 2 weeks.How did the media handle the crisis?While watching news reports, I saw news channels telecasting interviews of people who were unhappy over power and water cuts. This is good as media needs to give a platform for voices. But I wondered how they could miss the big storm which Delhi witnessed on May 30. The storm affected lives and traffic… many transmission lines and power generation plants were affected in Delhi. If they were really 4th pillar of democracy they could have explained about this storm in detail to people.Should previous government be blamed?States with proper development model and futuristic vision can change power crisis to power Surplus. Some states like MP, Chattisgarh are examples. Delhi government has failed to prevent power thefts. The nation’s supply network loses more than 27% of the power it carries because of dissipation from wires and theft, according to the Central Electricity Authority. That’s about 261,130 gigawatt-hour of power annually, enough to light up all of New York state for 21 months, and worth about Rs.1 trillion at an average electricity price of Rs.4 a unit. The loss is 5% in Australia, 6% in China and the US and 16% in Brazil, according to the World Bank. In Delhi this year, BSES registered more than 750 cases and discovered that about 3,330 kilowatts had been stolen in the past few days, enough to power more than 800 middle-class households in the capital. Below Quote also confirm that how previous government ignorance affected the state-“The situation after the storm on May 30 would have been handled without any load-shedding and disturbance, if the commissioning of the 220-KV Wazirpur grid with incoming power from the 400-KV Mundka substation had been completed on time,†said a senior TPDDL executive.Congress says there were no power cuts earlierDelhi has been seeing power cuts for a very long time and last year it was so bad that former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit had to write letter to Power Companies asking for 24 hours power supply. Report shows that in 2013, Delhi faced 10 hour long power cuts.The opinions expressed in this articles are the personal opinions of the author. 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