Blame game over massive blackout

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A blame game erupted among some states with whom the Centre also locked horns over the unprecedented power outage on Tuesday that affected 60 crore people - over half of the country's population.

The second blackout in two days after the power crisis hit north Inda on Monday also gave ammunition to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to take potshots at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said some states are drawing electricity over and above their limits.

"This was creating problems," Shinde said when asked what triggered the unprecedented simultaneous failure of Northern, Eastern and North Eastern Grids.

"This morning only, I was told (by officials) that about 3,000 MW extra power has been over drawn from the Eastern Grid. We have given the direction to either stop it (over drawal) or take action against them." he said in New Delhi.

Punjab government rejected the blame of power overdrawal from the northern grid leading to its collapse, claiming it was "minimum" compared to other states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Punjab's overdrawal was a meagre 1.2 per cent of its sanctioned load when the grid collapsed today while Haryana's overdrawal was a whopping 22.4 per cent and that of UP at 6.4 per cent, a state government spokesman said in Chandigarh.

The UP government said that taking into consideration the parameters at the time of grid failure there was no reason that any power operations in the state triggered it.

The assertions by the SAD-BJP(Punjab) and Samajwadi(UP) governments came after Delhi accused UP, Haryana and Punjab of overdrawing power from the Northern Grid which led to the massive power outage.

"With poor economic management UPA has emptied pockets of common man, kept stomachs hungry with inflation & today pushed them into darkness!," Modi wrote on Twitter.

"Pradhan Mantri ji, 60 crore people & 19 states are in darkness. Country wants to know is there any coalition dharma you are following here too?," he tweeted, apparently making a reference to the Prime Minister often blaming 'coalition constraints' for slow decision-making process. Gujarat was among the unaffected states.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Centre should evolve a system to ensure that no state received more than the eletricity quota limit for them.