- Pushing more than half of the country’s population into power crisis, three major transmission grids – Northern, Eastern and North Eastern — collapsed by 1300 hrs.

At present, the Northern Grid is getting power from Gwalior and Agra substations as well as from three hydel projects — Tehri and Vishnu Prayag in Uttarakhand and Nathpa Jhakri plant in Himachal Pradesh, he said.

According to Nayak, about 9,000 to 10,000 MW have been restored so far across all the three regions, where is demand is around 55,000 MW.

When asked about the possible reasons for the grids’ failures, Nayak said, “Some sections might have caused tripping but it is difficult to give you anything at this time. We are trying to fix the problem”.

Except for few areas in Kolkata and Delhi, and Narora (Uttar Pradesh), the entire regions were affected, he said.

Streets are packed in heavy traffics following power outage and rains in the central part of New Delhi, India, Tuesday, July 31, 2012. India’s energy crisis spread over half the country Tuesday when both its eastern and northern electricity grids collapsed, leaving almost a billion people without power in one of the world’s biggest-ever blackouts. Traffic lights went out across New Delhi.