(Image source from: South India in dark})

As anti-Telangana agitation gathers new storm, a large part of southern India including states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu has slipped into darkness.

Several towns and over hundreds of villages  went dark as workings on the southern power grid came to a halt with the workers at generating units shutting down thermal plants on Monday.

Angry protesters in the Seemandhra region, hollering for a rollback of the bifurcation decision, barricaded highways and  disrupted freight movement across the eastern-southern corridor across Odisha, West Bengal, TN and Karnataka, a move that has already resulted in skyrocketing of prices of essential commodities. Not just that, even surgeries had to be cancelled and ATMs stopped working owing to major power cut across the region.

As protests touched a new crescendo and with the electricity employees unrelenting, train schedules were off-tracked and several express and passenger trains had to be called off owing to no electricity.

“Apprehending the crisis could lead to the collapse of the southern grid, power officials from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Pondicherry sought the intervention of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) which in turn directed AP officials to ensure that the crisis didn't spin out of control. The collapse of the southern grid will lead to a total blackout in the southern states,” reported a leading national daily, TOI.

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury