Circa Oct 2012, somewhere in North India....
It has been over two months now that North India has been without power. All this started off somewhere in the last week of July when the backbone of the region's power transmission - Northern Grid collapsed because of over withdrawal.
After all the initial uproar and anger against the Government for not having done anything to bring back the states to a state of power, like always- resilient that we are...the citizens of Northern States have reconciled to a life without power.
Well, the Government did act on the situation- the Power Minister was promoted in a cabinet reshuffle. Quite a power shift!, one would think!!! Sushilkumar Shinde has sent back to Home. Is this not a punitive action enough?? Diggy Raja asked the scribes while making this announcement.
Well, for all the wrong or right reasons - somethings have changed over the last two months in the region surrounding the National Capital Region.
Mrs.Chaddha came back huffing and puffing after a gossip chat with Mrs.Ahuja- their neighbour. She tells Mr.Chaddha,"Aaho Chaddhaji - Ahujaon ke paas 5 bandh generator hain aur humaare yahan sirf teen!!!! Aaj ke aaj aap do aur bandh generator le aana jee!!!".
Anna has taken a break from his indefinite fast when authorities had no option but to withdraw the diesel generators provided at Jantar Mantar. The ANNaSHAN would not get enough media coverage because of lack of power generators at the venue so it has been indefinitely called off. Om Puri was supposed to visit but had to cancel his plans when he was told that rocks could not be provided for his one-on-the-rocks. His spirits must have been shattered!!!
Arvind Kejriwal is still complaining that the entire grid was made to collapse so that national interest would deviate from Lok Pal to gridwall. Alas, by the time he made this statement- there was no media around to even record his statement!!!!
Parliament is functioning as normal, anyways. It did nothing when there was power so the status quo has not changed much.
UP was identified to be the main culprit by CERC - the regulator for power. UP had withdrawn 70% more than it's scheduled quota for two consecutive days. Akhilesh Yadav was summoned by the CERC and was ordered to provide 20 million cycles to the affected population of the states as a measure of compensation whose distribution would be overseen by CERC. Akhilesh had no choice but to say yes so the order for 20 million cycles was given to the Munjal Group's Hero Cycles. The cost of each cycle came to a nominal 150,000 INR only with the SP emblem embossed on them. Towards this, UP government requested a withdrawal of funds from the Prime Minister's contingency fund towards funding this regulatory obligation. Given the coalition dharma that Congress preaches and practices - Manmohan Singh gladly allowed SP to overdraw from the fund.
Munjals have deferred the production of the cycles till days of power come back so the project has been sanctioned and approved and awarded and paid but just not yet executed nor delivered. Akhilesh submitted the purchase order to the CERC and UP government was honourably exonerated.
Delhiites are a happy lot - they get to spend a fortune on diesel and petrol and get to drive their cars everywhere. For, in the recent years, they were forced to become conscientious citizens - social pressure forcing them to use the Metro and the revamped DTC buses. There were lot of hopes that Delhiites would finally shed the bathures around their waists but no such luck!!!! More cars were bought, more petrol consumed .... yes of course, all on credit, what else!!!
And finally, giving credit where it is rightly due - most banquet halls and party lawns across the NCR region have already been booked by touts and agents. Reminiscing about the 1996 Great American Blackout and a subsequent hypercopulation that resulted as one of the activities people indulged in - same time next year, there will be a lot of first year birthdays to be celebrated and these touts are planning to take in a windfall gain in the process. We Indians are known to be a highly reproductive population.
For a change, we dont know if Mahesh Bhatt is making any movie titled Power Cut starring Emran Hashmi and some PYT - he may have announced it but 10% of the world and over 50% of India could not hear him or see him.
Well, on the front of power restoration, it seems that a parallel grid has already been set up and it will soon start providing services to the entire region. Ponty Chaddha owns the grid and it seems that a significant amount has gone to the CMs of the different affected states to ...well do nothing.
We managed to get a glimpse of this under installation. Here is it...
No comments:
Post a Comment