India's energy crisis has spread to more than half the country after its eastern, northern and north-eastern electricity grids collapsed, leaving more than 600 million people without power.
The power failure on Tuesday has raised serious concerns about India's outdated infrastructure and the government's inability to meet the country's energy needs as it vies to become a regional economic superpower.
The outage in the eastern grid came a day after India's northern power grid collapsed for several hours. Officials restored power, but at 1.05pm the northern grid collapsed again. About the same time, the eastern grid failed as well, with the north-eastern grid reported as being down shortly after.
The combined northern and eastern grids serve about 600 million people.
Traffic lights went out across New Delhi and the city's metro rail system, which serves about 1.8 million people a day, immediately shut down for the second day in a row. Police said they managed to evacuate Delhi's busy Barakhamba Road station in less than 30 minutes before closing the shutters.
SK Jain said he was on his way to file his income tax return when the metro closed and would almost certainly miss the deadline.
The new power failure affected people across 13 states, more than the entire population of the EU.
India's demand for electricity has soared along with its economy in recent years, but utilities have been unable to meet the growing needs. India's Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of more than 8% in recent months.
The deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher. This further increased electricity usage as people sought to cool off.
But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's households do not have enough electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census.
