Power supply restored fully in north-east: Shinde

Power supply has been restored fully in the north-east and it will take a few more hours to resume supplies in other parts of country hit by the outages, Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Tuesday.

"Power supply has been fully restored in the north-east," Shinde told reporters.

Grids in the northern, eastern and north-eastern regions failed at 1 am today, causing power crisis for nearly half of the country's population, spread across 22 states and union territories.

The State-run Power Grid Corporation, in a statement, said the situation in major parts of the country is expected to be normal in the next two to three hours.

"It is expected that supply to all the major points in affected regions shall be made available in two to three of hours time," the company, which controls grids, said.

Meanwhile, a power ministry official said that 22,549 MW capacity had been restored till 5.45 pm, out of the total disrupted capacity of around 50,000 MW.

According to Shinde, about 13,000 MW supply has been restored in the northern region while it is about 4,000 MW in the eastern region.

In Delhi, around 2,000 MW supply has already been restored, he noted.

Power Grid Corp said that electricity supply to affected regions is being extended from western and southern Grids.

"Presently, supply to the northern region has been extended from Gwalior on Gwalior-Agra line up to Delhi stations. Hydro Stations in the northern region have been started and supply has restored up to Punjab and Haryana areas also," the transmission utility noted.

Power Grid said that supply to railway traction and Metro has been restored to almost all the points.