Prolonged outage has Burari residents protesting on ORR, bringing traffic to a halt | Latest News Delhi

Hundreds of residents of Jagatpur village in Burari took to the streets on Thursday night, blocking the Outer Ring Road for over three hours in protest against a prolonged power outage. The demonstration, which lasted from 8pm to 11pm, brought peak-hour traffic to a standstill, leaving commuters stranded as protesters demanded the immediate restoration of electricity.

The outage also ignited a political spat between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Delhi government. While AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal claimed that Delhi had not experienced such outages during his tenure, Delhi’s power minister Ashish Sood countered by sharing data on power disruptions under AAP’s rule, accusing Kejriwal of spreading misinformation and fear among the public.

Locals said the power cut occurred shortly after an alleged scuffle between some residents and officials from the power distribution company (discom), though senior officials denied the claim. “We heard there was some scuffle between locals and power officials. Soon after, power was disconnected,” said Laxman Singh, a property dealer from Jagatpur village who participated in the demonstration.

He added that residents resorted to blocking the road only after repeated calls to power officials and the police went unheeded.

Delhi’s power discoms declined comment on the incident.

Reposting a video of locals blocking Outer Ring Road, Kejriwal wrote on X,”We had set up the power system in Delhi with great difficulty, we had worked very hard. And we kept an eye on it daily. There was no power cut anywhere for 10 years. These people have made the power situation worse in just one and a half months.”

Power Minister Ashish Sood dismissed Kejriwal’s claims, stating that planned power outages are routine for maintenance under both summer and winter action plans.

“The reported power cut (in Jagatpur) was a minor and localised incident. Planned outages occur every year as part of both summer and winter action plans, allowing discoms to carry out essential maintenance work,” Sood said.

Citing data from the state load despatch centre, the minister said, “There were significant power outages—at least an hour long—each month even under AAP’s rule. In total, 21,597 outages of one hour or more have occurred in the last year, an average of 59 outages every day.”

In a statement released late in the evening, AAP rejected the minister’s claims, maintaining that the Kejriwal-led government had “made transformative changes in the power sector” and successfully met peak demand, reaching a record high of 8,656 MW in the summer of 2024.