Several complaints were received today from irate residents of Dwarka, Naraina, Palam as well as the industrial areas of Okhla, Najafgarh, Mayapuri and Wazirpur. According to the residents of Dwarka, the electric supply which was disrupted last night around 8.45 was restored only for a few minutes in the forenoon before it went off once again. Narender Nath, an area resident of Dwarka said that, ``The DVB has nothing but excuses to offer all the time. Sometimes they attribute the failure to the 220 KV grid feeding the area which they is under `routine maintenance' while other times they say the entire northern grid has collapsed. How do we know? All we can do is keep calling the complaint center and the media and pray the ordeal ends at some point,'' he said.

While a resident of Dwarka said that this tripping was because of numerous dairy farms in the area who ``switch on these giant locally-made geysers to bathe their buffaloes'', a resident of Naraina blamed the industries for indulging in power thefts. He even alleged the connivance of the linemen with the industrialist to provide them with extra power during the tight hours. Meanwhile, the DVB has said that this load-shedding has had to be done to facilitate repair work on certain outstation lines, and Auaraiya and Dadri Gas turbine stations. The connection to these lines, however the DVB said, was restored by 5.30 p.m. today.

The DVB said that though it was trying its best to ensure the restoration of power it was not really in their hands to control the power input from the outstation lines. It claimed to have taken up this matter with the concerned agencies (NRLDC and NREB) to allocate 6 per cent more power for peaking purposes daily to cope with the heavy load during morning and evening peak hours. In a related development, the Power Minister of Delhi, Narender Nath, has said that he has taken up these issues of frequent breakdown and other problems have been taken up with the concerned agencies and has appealed to the people to bear with them and help them to conserve the energy.