<p> Amid sharp criticism over his elevation as the country's home minister on a day the nation faced its worst electricity blackout, the outgoing power minister Sushilkumar Shinde on 1 August said people should appreciate that electricity supply was restored within hours. </p><div> </div><div>Shinde also told a news channel the next day: "I rate myself as an excellent power minister."</div><div> </div><div>Starting his career as a humble police sub-inspector and ending up as the home minister who is going to be in charge of the law and order of the entire country, Shinde has been through it all. But perhaps, he will be known as the guy who managed to literally emerge from the darkness of India and land in the North Block. </div><div> </div><div>Even before the power was fully restored, the government announced that Shinde has been appointed as home minister in place of P Chidambaram who returned to finance ministry after three-and-half years.</div><div> </div><div>Lights went off for a couple of seconds when Chidambaram was giving a monthly report card of his ministry during his interaction with the media at the Press Information Bureau(PIB) conference hall in the heart of the Capital. </div><div> </div><div>In fact, as Shinde as power minister had stood up to address parliament one day last May, the chamber had been plunged into darkness and a roar of laughter went up.</div><div> </div><div>Rolling power cuts are part of daily life in India, where energy production falls far short of the demands of a fast-growing economy and an increasingly affluent population, but blackouts for two days this week across a vast swathe of the country were no laughing matter.</div><div> </div><div>It is not that Shinde as power minister has not added to India's power capacity. India has an installed power capacity of 205,000 megawatts (MW), about 35 per cent more than it had five years ago, thanks to an aggressive drive by the government to add more.</div><div> </div><div>However, that is still only about a fifth of China's capacity, and so - even though one third of Indians are not even connected to a power grid - there is a gap between supply and demand, with the peak-hour deficit reaching about 10 per cent.</div><div> </div><div>Power Back In Hours</div><div>Shinde told reporters at his residence in New Delhi on 1 August "we got electricity in a matter of hours... people should appreciate how work is done at the grid," Shinde said he has submitted the report on the power crisis to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).</div><div> </div><div>"I have briefed PMO...in the USA light (electricity) does not come for four days, here we got it (restored) in a matter of hours," he said.</div><div> </div><div>Electricity grids tripped for the second time in two days on 31 July, causing blackouts in 19 states and two Union Territories including the national capital Delhi. Power supplies were fully restored in 15 hours after the wee-hour tripping of grid on 30 July, and it took almost 20 hours to get back electricity in all the areas that saw power failure on 31 July. </div><div> </div><div>After the second tripping of the grid, it was officials of Power Grid Corporation of India, the state-owned firm which operates most of the electricity transmission lines in the country, who were tasked with the job of explaining the reasons for the failure. </div><div> </div><div>Earlier this week, Shinde had said that in 2003 there was blackout in some states of USA, which got fixed in about four days, while back home the engineers at Power Grid Corp were able to restore power in hours.</div><div> </div><div>Shinde blamed the system collapse on some states drawing more than their share of electricity from the overstretched grid. Asia's third-largest economy suffers a peak-hour power deficit of about 10 percent, dragging on economic growth.</div><div> </div><div>"This is the second day that something like this has happened. I've given instructions that whoever overdraws power will be punished."</div><div> </div><div>The country's southern and western grids were supplying power to help restore services, officials said.</div><div> </div><div>The problem has been made worse by a weak monsoon in agricultural states such as wheat-belt Punjab and Uttar Pradesh in the Gangetic plains, which has a larger population than Brazil. With less rain to irrigate crops, more farmers resort to electric pumps to draw water from wells.</div><div> </div><div>Power shortages and a creaky road and rail network have weighed heavily on the country's efforts to industrialise. Grappling with the slowest economic growth in nine years, Delhi recently scaled back a target to pump $1 trillion into infrastructure over the next five years.</div><div> </div><div>Major industries have dedicated power plants or large diesel generators and are shielded from outages -- but the inconsistent supply hits investment and disrupts small businesses.</div><div> </div><div>High consumption of heavily subsidised diesel by farmers and businesses has fuelled a gaping fiscal deficit that the government has vowed to tackle to restore confidence in the economy. But the poor monsoon means a subsidy cut is politically difficult.</div><div> </div><div>On 31 July, the Reserve Bank of India cut its economic growth outlook for the fiscal year that ends in March to 6.5 per cent, from the 7.3 per cent assumption made in April, putting its outlook closer to that of many private economists.</div><div> </div><div> </div>
