NEW DELHI: Delhiites continued to struggle with power outages Monday when mercury climbed to a multiyear high, as inadequate transmission capacity prevented the capital's distribution companies from drawing enough electricity from other states.On Monday, the Indian Energy Exchange witnessed demand for 69 million units from the northern region including Delhi, but distributors could purchase only 51 million units because of inadequate transmission capacity, a senior exchange executive said.Delhi's peak demand was about 5,600 mw on Sunday, but the city's three distribution companies could supply only 5,150 mw as the damage caused to transmission networks by last month's severe storm has limited their ability to bring power from elsewhere. On Monday, the temperature rose to 47.6 degree Celsius in Delhi's Palam area.The city's official temperature at Safdarjung observatory hit a high of 45.5 degrees, exceeding the previous high of 45.4 degrees recorded on June 1, 2012. The India Meteorological Department said the severe heatwave conditions could continue for the next few days in most of north India."Till June 12 we don't see any major respite," said LS Rathore, director general of meteorology at the IMD. However, dust storm and thunderstorm at isolated places over Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi and north Madhya Pradesh in the next 24 hours could bring temperature down by 1-2 degree Celsius, said meteorologists.BSES Yamuna Power and BSES Rajdhani Power, both part of Anil Ambani's Reliance Group, announced their schedule of one to two hours of power cuts in the areas where they supply electricity. Tata Power Delhi said it hopes supplies to become normal from Tuesday, when it expects transmission company Delhi Transco to restore the Bawana-Rohini line. On Monday, Churu in Rajasthan recorded the country's highest temperature at 48.3 degrees, followed by Ganganagar in Rajasthan at 48 degrees and Delhi's Palam area along with Satna in Madhya Pradesh at 47.6 degrees.On Monday, a group of Congress workers led by Arvinder Singh Lovely held Chief Secretary SK Srivastava hostage for half-anhour at the Delhi Secretariat over power and water crisis. Srivastava was allowed to go after he gave a written assurance to improve the situation.Delhi's power secretary Arun Goyal and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung met top officials of Delhi Transco and discoms on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, to review the situation following the thunderstorm that hit North India on May 30. However, Delhi government did not announce when Delhi Transco will be able to put its systems in place "With the kind of storm that Delhi witnessed, transmission and distribution firms acted timely to save the Northern Grid. However, the systems need to be robust to improve reliability of the grid by commissioning equipment for secondary distribution system to isolate affected areas and supply uninterrupted power in other parts," said Schneider Electric India Managing Director Prakash Chandraker.