The power demand in the national capital on Tuesday touched an all-time high of 5,925 MW even as areas across the city faced electricity cuts for upto four hours.

The previous highest power consumption in the city was recorded on July 11 when it had gone upto 5810 MW.

"The maximum power demand in the city was recorded at 5,925 MW at 3:20 PM which is a new record of power consumption in Delhi," a power department official said. The rise in electricity demand caused power cuts ranging from one to four hours.

Power department officials claimed there was no shortage of power in Delhi and outages were taking place due to problems in distribution network of BSES discoms. BSES refused to comment.

Explaining the reasons for the power cuts, they said when the electricity demand goes up, the distribution lines trip as they have not been strengthened to take increased loads.

The government has been asking BSES discoms to improve their power distribution network. Last summer, the then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had even threatened to take strict action against BSES if they do not improve their power distribution system which often trips when the demand increases.

The power demand in the city has been increasing at a rate of around 8% in the last few years and the government had projected it to touch 6,000 MW this summer.

According to official figures, the power demand in 1905 was just two mega watt which had increased to 27 mega watt in 1947. The peak demand was recorded at 86 MW in 1961 and 259 MW in 1971.

It had touched 563 MW in 1981 and rose to 1,536 MW in 1992. In 1997, the demand increased to 2,303 MW and further to 2,879 MW in 2001.

In 2002, it had gone up to 3,097 MW while in 2007, it touched 4,030 MW. While the demand went up to 4,408 MW in 2009, it reached 4,720 MW in 2010. In 2011, it had increased to 5,028 mega watts and it went up to 5,642 MW in 2012.

On June 6, last year, the demand had peaked at 5653 MW.