Just outside the city limits, patience snapped in Badshahpur, a Gurgaon village, after 15 hours without electricity The villagers stormed the local electricity office, beat the staff on duty and damaged equipment in use.

Following the rioting, the Haryana power transmission company retaliated by shutting down six sub stations plunging more than half the city into darkness - DLF City, Sushant Lok, South City, most of the HUDA Sectors and Udyog Vihar

The Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) had been expecting trouble. They had sought police protection for its facilities in January itself But because of the paucity of police personnel, the request was not met, said HVPN general manager Raghuvir Sharan.

Badshahpur and the rest of Gurgaon have been in a worse situation for many days and weeks. Residents have complained of power cuts that last hours, adding up to 10 or more hours in many parts.  

Old Gurgaon blames New Gurgaon's insatiable appetite for electricity for its tall condominiums, the malls and such other facilities. New Gurgaon blames its developers, but it has at least power back up that makes things bearable.

The Federation of Residents Welfare Associations said it will file a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking an order preventing the Haryana Government from planning more townships till it has addressed power and water problems adequately.

"The government should be stopped from indiscriminately issuing licences to private developers for developing more townships when there is no power for the existing population of Gurgaon. We would like to know from the government as to where it is going to find more power and water for the new inhabitants," said Dharam Sagar, the association's chairperson.

With the temperature hovering around the 40s, patience is running thin in and around Delhi. The situation is particularly bad in the NCR areas of Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Noida.

This whole area is woefully short of electricity. Delhi, for instance, is 600 megawatt short of the demand now and Gurgaon - which pays the most for electricity in India-is short by an astonishing 1000 megawatt - the demand here is around 1,500 MW against the supply of 525 MW.

This kind of a gap cannot be bridged overnight through borrowed electricity - drawing more from the grid. The continuous shortfall strains the distribution network rendering it brittle and extremely vulnerable to snapping under stress.

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