A vendor selling hand fans cycles across the Yamuna bridge with his wares on a hot summer afternoon in Allahabad yesterday. Temperatures across many parts of northern India hovered around the mid-40 degrees Celsius mark, and the heat wave is expected to last through the week.

Agencies/New Delhi

Angry protests broke out in New Delhi over power blackouts as summer temperatures soar, fuelling concerns of a repeat of an electricity crisis two years ago, police said yesterday.
Residents took to the streets at around midnight on Tuesday in New Delhi’s northeast, attacking vehicles as frustration mounts over the power cuts, a senior officer said.
“So far we have arrested three people for damaging a bus and a Gypsy (a jeep) while protesting power cuts in Bhajanpura area,” Additional Commissioner of Police V V Chaudhary said.
Sultanpuri area also saw protests yesterday.
“We have never seen such long power cuts, lasting up to 10-12 hours a day, due to which even the water supply has been affected. Our children too are not able to prepare for their examinations,” a woman said.
Jai Kishan, a legislator from Sultanpur Majra, sat on a hunger strike early yesterday.
“We are facing acute power shortage, so I decided to sit on a hunger strike. I will decide on my next move only after meeting other party leaders,” Kishan said.
Power outages mainly in northern India have been triggered by a spike in demand as temperatures soar, leaving a dilapidated electricity infrastructure unable to cope.
Riots erupted over the weekend in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, with residents storming a substation near the capital Lucknow.
The Delhi government announced emergency-power saving measures on Sunday, including cutting electricity at the city’s shopping malls, turning off street lights and ordering government offices to switch off air-conditioners at certain times.
Damage to some transmission lines during a recent major thunderstorm in Delhi, home to more than 16mn people, has added to the problems.
A political row has erupted over the cuts, with new Power Minister Piyush Goyal blaming the city’s previous Congress government for outdated infrastructure, as authorities scramble to address the problems.
New Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power last month on a pledge to reform the economy, including strengthening energy security and boosting development of solar power.
India has long struggled to meet rapidly rising demand in Asia’s third largest economy, with poorly maintained transmission lines and overloaded grids.
A power crisis two years ago blacked out half the country and left more than 600mn people without electricity.
The two days of massive outages were blamed on states taking power beyond their allocated limits and proved embarrassing for a country that sees itself as as industrialised power.
Meanwhile former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought an appointment with the prime minister over power crisis.
Alleging Delhi’s power distribution companies (discoms) are “not doing their job properly,” Kejriwal wrote in a letter to Modi: “It, however, appears the government is shying away from fixing the accountability of discoms and at times one gets an impression the government is trying to protect these discoms.”
The Aam Aadmi Party leader asked Modi to “strictly enforce the accountability of these discoms,” citing an agreement which binds them “to maintain their equipment and network so people get uninterrupted power supply.”
As temperatures exceeded 45 degrees Celsius, social workers warned yesterday of the deadly consequences for homeless people.
“There has been a rise in the number of deaths among Delhi’s homeless in this heat wave,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia, a convener of the Centre For Holistic Development.