Lucknow, July 27 -- Despite Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's stern warnings and Energy minister A.K. Sharma's disapproval, Uttar Pradesh's power crisis shows no signs of abating. Though official records suggest electricity surplus and relatively low demand, ground reality tells another story: long outages, widespread tripping, and mounting public frustration.

Currently, about 2,065 MW of generation capacity is idle, citing "low demand" and "technical issues." Units in Obra, Harduaganj, Panki, and four private Tanda units (440 MW) remain offline until late July or August. Meanwhile, rural consumers face up to 14-hour cuts daily. Urban areas, including Lucknow, endure frequent power tripping - 8-10 times a day - despite government claims of 24-hour city supply and 18.5 hours for villages. Actual shortfall averages 6-8 hours, often blamed on "local faults."

Energy department officials admit that ageing infrastructure and staff shortages cripple supply. "Lines stretch 20-30 km and are decades old. Locating a fault can take hours-sometimes pole-to-pole," said an official. Nearly 20,000 contractual workers were recently laid off, leaving one junior engineer to oversee multiple substations with minimal linemen.

Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad chief Avadhesh Kumar Verma said: "Breakdowns happen during monsoon, but systems should be prepared. Strengthen feeder monitoring, end rostering, and ensure at least 15-18 hours of supply."

All India Power Engineers Federation chief Shailendra Dubey said: "Electricity exists but doesn't reach people. It's sheer mismanagement - machines and materials are there, but no manpower. Petrolemen posts have been abolished, collapsing monitoring." Power Corporation chairman Ashish Kumar Goel said corrective work under the RDSS scheme is underway to upgrade transformers, feeders, and wires. He urged timely bill payments to accelerate improvements.

The state has over 3.5 crore electricity consumers. On June 10, it achieved a peak supply of 32,000 MW-a record. Current daily demand is around 23,566 MW. Still, the power sector struggles to provide uninterrupted service.

Akhilesh slams BJP over power crisis

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP government of pushing Uttar Pradesh's power sector into "a state of collapse", blaming it for "failing to add new plants and letting infrastructure decay".

Yadav alleged that people face inflated bills, frequent outages, and corruption in electricity distribution. Even Lucknow, he said, is suffering long power cuts, with protests at substations.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.