Blistering Barsatis

THIS is a story about the powerless capital of nuclear-powered India. About Hindustan's first city succumbing to long, enervating power blackouts and a severe water crisis bang in the middle of a killing heatwave. About its furious citizenry staging angry protests, mobbing complaint rooms and lashing out in desperation at the civic collapse. And as headlines in a local paper announced the "failure of airconditioners to cool tempers in the Parliament over the nuclear debate", they also flashed the death toll due to the heatwave: 14 (out of a national toll of about 500 deaths). More infuriating than ironic really.

 After hours of sweating in the dark, harassed residents of Delhi's congested Khichripur area marched up to their local police chowki, assaulted the additional SHO and torched three vehicles. In Uttam Nagar, the local BJP office was ransacked by angry residents deprived of electricity for over 10 hours at a trot. Dharnas, shouting duels, frayed tempers make for a depressing read in local dailies each hot morning. On May 29 alone, the city police was busy coping with 12 dharnas all over the city.

Scared Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) employees are locking up sub-stations and complaint centres to flee for cover. Residents of Vikaspuri, who decided after a long breakdown well past midnight that enough was enough, found the local DVB officials had shifted to the area police chowki. "We need protection. People are ready to thrash us up," the scared personnel told the complainants. "But we can't be blamed." Who then is to blame, fulminate Delhiites. With the mercury soaring to heights unprecedented in 50 years, no power, no water and complaints going abegging, it's a capital mess. That the city is short of 400 MW at peak hours makes for annoying arithmetic. Generators, borewells and booster pumps have come to spell dubious survival.

Even that's not enough. Says Mr Bhandari, a resident of South Delhi's posh Gulmohar Park who recently burnt himself seriously while refuelling his generator: "We called the fire service for 12 minutes before they picked up the phone. They never arrived. In the capital. It's shameful."

Delhi's chief minister Sahib Singh Verma pleads otherwise: "Mumbai and other metros might be better but Delhi's the best among state-run power boards. We've always had shortage. Things will improve with our (BJP) government at the Centre. We'll get more power and water." Two years and the pending power projects at Bawana, Pragati, Narela and 10 smaller projects will be through, he says, and that should normalise things.

For now, DVB chairman Navin Chawla is firefighting. Employment of 150 graduates for six months to man the complaint cells, numbering pages in complaint books so that they can't be torn, 15 arrests made for power thefts in three days, mandatory registration of ACs, evening ban on ACs in commercial outfits. "Nobody rations consumption. We need cooperation too," he says. Presently, the DVB has been sanctioned a special Delhi police force: to monitor thefts (2,009 cases booked this year alone, only nine arrests). Chawla defends DVB: "Five lakh people enter Delhi annually—supply outweighs demand. Also, it's small consolation but the rest of the northern states are doing much worse."

Says Union power minister P.R. Kumaramangalam: "Both transmission and distribution systems need improvement, better load management, better personnel management, dealing with thefts on a war footing. Frankly, I can do little right now other than some disciplining," the minister told Out -look, not forgetting to reiterate the government's commitment to resolving the crisis.

As have past governments. But 50 years of governance later, it takes one scorching summer to have Delhi's civic system collapse. "There have been governments in Delhi, there has never been any administration," says Jag Parvesh Chandra, leader of opposition in the Delhi Assembly. "The big offenders in power thefts are never prosecuted, no capacity additions are made... now the CM does little else but abuse the demotivated DVB staff. It's soon going to deteriorate from a power crisis to a law-and-order situation." In powerless Delhi, the city where our powerful Parliament debates matters of international security.