Powercuts.in: Mapping India's power cuts

When the lights go out in homes in Delhi’s upmarket South Extension, the low hum of hundreds of inverters kicks in. Back-up electricity costs many times the standard tariff for grid power. When Poinguinim in Goa faces periodic rolling blackouts, its 7000-odd denizens fret as the perishable food in their refrigerators goes bad. Water supply and medical care are disrupted, so is everyday life. When the electricity trips for 21 hours every day in Mettupalayam in the industrial district of Coimbatore, time simply stops. Throughout the expanse of the country, the consequences of power outages range from inconvenience to distress. The eleventh Five Year Plan aimed to establish “power for all” by 2012, but now the target has been pushed back. There is still no centralised data repository that logs information about power cuts in detail so that trends can be identified and steps taken to help people. How many of these power outages are planned? How many are incidental? How is electricity theft to be measured? Click here for full story