Power shortages spark outrage in northern India as temperatures soar, AS

Thu, May 8 06:22 PM

NEW DELHI (AP) _ Angry mobs upset by recurring power cuts and soaring temperatures blocked highways in northern India for a second day Wednesday to demand better power supplies, police said. India's push to build more power stations has lagged far behind its rapid economic growth, and frustration is growing among those in this country of 1.

1 billion who have to contend with power shortages that often last half a day or longer. The electricity shortfalls are most acute in the spring and summer when temperatures in northern India regularly soar above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).

The frustration over power cuts has recently turned to anger in many parts of the country. Some of the worst unrest has taken place in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, one of India's poorest and worst governed.

On Wednesday, mobs there blocked highways for a second day, demanding better power supplies in and around Allahabad, a key city in the state, said Suren Shrivastava, a state police spokesman. Allahabad has suffered from 18-hour power cuts in recent days.

On Tuesday in Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb that has become a center for the country's high-tech industry, about 35 people ransacked a power company office and beat up some workers, police officer Hukam Singh told The Associated Press. The assailants fled when police arrived, but authorities managed to arrest one of the men, Singh said.

In a poor part of northern New Delhi on Tuesday, residents threw stones at a power company office, police said. No injuries or significant damage was reported.

India's junior home minister, Prakash Jaiswal, even joined a protest Tuesday in the industrial city of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. "There's no electricity in Kanpur for almost 16 hours every day," Jaiswal told reporters.

He represents Kanpur in India's Parliament. The state is ruled by a powerful regional group, the Bahujan Samaj Party, a rival to Jaiswal's Congress party, which leads India's governing coalition.

At one point Tuesday night, Jaiswal joined hundreds of local residents who marched to the home of the state utility's managing director and woke him up by beating drums, chanting religious hymns and singing Hindi movie songs. "The managing director's house is well lit while the whole city is in pitch dark," Rohan Sharma, a local Congress leader, told The Associated Press.

"How can he sleep when we are sweating out in this sweltering summer." Officials say they are doing their best, but there is simply too much demand for electricity.

"The state needs almost 6,500 megawatts of electricity during the peak summer months, whereas we generate just 5,400 megawatts," said Manoj Duggal, a state government official. Also on Tuesday, an angry mob stormed a state utility office in the town of Sonebhadra in Uttar Pradesh and switched off the air conditioners, forcing officials to suffer through the heat just like most other people in the town.

___ Associated Press reported Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to this story.

RECOMMEND THIS STORY