Delhi recorded a maximum of 41.7°C on Tuesday and it is expected that during the next two days, day temperatures may touch 45°C. Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi which were facing protest against power cuts will also witness rise in temperatures during the period.
So, weather conditions in the national capital Delhi will be similar to that on 30th May when power demand reached a new high of 100.897 million units due to record temperature of 46°C. According to a Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) official, the highest ever consumption of power in Delhi on a single day is 2nd July 2012 when it reached a high of 107.365. So there is every chance that this record could be broken soon.
Summer conditions could be worse in Uttar Pradesh, firstly due to shortage in power and secondly due to tussle between BJP-led government at the Centre and the Samajwadi Partly government in the state. The Central government has approved 325 MW power from the central pool from 1st to 7th June, but the state will remain 1700 MW short of demand. The peak demand in Uttar Pradesh is of 12,700 MW. The state gets 10,700 MW, leaving a shortfall of around of 2,000 MW at present.
The Uttar Pradesh government has been blamed that it has stopped buying power from the Centre so that there is frequent power cuts in the state and he is able to avenge the defeat meted out to him in the general elections. However, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav tried to play it down by saying that power generation units are not working to their full capacity due to lack of coal supply.
But the new Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal refuted the claims and said "we have supplied adequate quantity of coal to power plants in Uttar Pradesh as per the linkages. We have also offered the state government to buy power from the northern grid".
Photograph by Magnus Manske