ISAS Insights

On 30 and 31 July 2012, India was hit by a massive power outage that affected three major electricity grids covering the north, east and north-eastern regions. The outage affected over 700 million people. This was arguably the most serious power outage incident in the country in over 50 years. The southern grid, which covers transmission to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry (formerly, Pondicherry), escaped the brunt of this blackout, as it is isolated from the north, east, north-eastern and western grids.