New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) : The heat is getting to Delhiites - the lack of rain, long power cuts and water shortage have led to people venting their anger on the city's streets. Old-time residents and weather officials say this unrelenting heat wave could be caused by the city's lung, the Ridge, turning barren by the day and the never-ending "concrete boom".
Four-and-half years ago, when Madhavi Banerjee, a communications professional migrated to the capital and saw the Ridge outlying the sprawling city from the window of her train, it struck her as unusually barren for a hill.
"Stark, almost like a desert with its lifeless vegetation," thought the 32-year-old from Kolkata. But then the Ridge was on the spur of the ancient Aravalli hills that straddled a desert state barely 260 km away, she reasoned to herself.
But now the desert on the other side of the Aravallis seems to be eating into the metropolis, bringing with it scorching heat, outages, depleting water and jungles of dry concrete.
The mercury Friday remained a little over 43.2 degrees Celsius, at least five degrees above the average. On Sunday, the met office has predicted the maximum temperatures to hover around 43.5 degrees Celsius.
It has been like this for almost a week and the demand for power upped to 4,218 MW, setting a new high.
"At one point, the demand rose to 4,275 MW. The average demand for power in the capital is around 3,600 MW to 3,700 MW," a Delhi Transco official said.
Delhi Transco maintains the capital's power grid and monitors supply in the city.
The blistering heat wave spell is also longer than previous years because of the delayed monsoon. The barren Delhi ridge and its adjacent concrete and steel skyline probably account for the delay.
"I remember even 30 years ago the Ridge was greener and there used to be dense forests near the north campus of the Delhi University. But it has changed. The forest has receded. There are too many high rises now," said Devinder Jain, an old-timer, whose home in the Civil Lines overlooks a flank of the Delhi Ridge.
Weathermen and geologists say the climate has changed for the worse. Global warming could be a reason, said a senior weather official, but the "concrete boom" and felling of trees, which were carried on with impunity till the Municipal Corporation of Delhi cracked down on it two years ago under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act (1994) were responsible for climatic extremes.
"Heat is doing strange things to people," said Pradeep Ganguly, an engineer in Vasant Kunj, who has readjusted his budget at home to spend more on generator fuel and water carriers.
On Friday and Saturday, angry residents protested against power outages and scarcity of water and vandalised the power minister's office too.
"The employees of many complaint cells are leaving their posts unmanned at night fearing backlash by angry residents," said Himanshu Savarn at the BSES Sector 13 centre in Dwarka.
People broke open the gates of the Delhi Jal Board office in Paharganj and damaged three public buses in protest against water shortage.
But there are some who are happy and making most of the scorching summer. Vendors hawking ice-lollies and ice-candies saw brisk business over the last week, while the two recreation pools at the India Gate, a historic landmark in the heart of the capital, overflowed with amateur swimmers and carefree bathers.