Much has been written about the disastrous monsoon over the Indian subcontinent this season. We have heard the blame being apportioned to either El nino or climate change or even massive deforestation for the no-show of the rains this time. Even a small drizzle in peak monsoon time left people gushing.
However, urban India did not mind the monsoon debacle too much. It was hot but that was not an issue as long as the generators were running and the power back up was constantly feeding the city highrises. The cities were sleeping soundly amidst the comfortable whirring of their mega generators and ‘inverters’. The only concern seemed to be that potatoes and onions could get dearer soon.
However, this week changed all of that. The week started with massive power outages across India. Reason — three major power grids of the country — the northern, north-eastern and eastern — collapsed leaving almost half of India without power for long, uncomfortable hours. Close to 700 million people were directly affected by the long hours of power cut. The power crash brought trains to a stop, closed markets down, forced closure of many educational institutes and offices and left citizens across urban India, not exposed such a crisis in recent times, high and dry.
And why did the crisis befall us? States withdrew more power than they were entitled to. Close to 80% of the power generated in India is thermal. And with air conditioners working overtime and farmers drawing more groundwater to meet the near-drought situation, there’s been a higher deman-supply gap than ever, according to New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). CSE says with low monsoon, India generated 6% lesser hydropower in June 2012 than in June 2011. That triggered the situation. There have been demands for switching over to renewable sources of energy, including solar and wind, but barring a few initiatives here and there, the country has not really gone big on them.
The failure of a monsoon has more than it meets the eye. At least the urban eye. It was only when power went off for long hours that Facebook statuses cribbed of ‘life without power’ and ‘half of India’ was trending on Twitter.
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