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Friday, Jul 23, 2004

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Other States - Uttar Pradesh

Power units synchronised to resolve crisis

Obra, Sonebhadra, July 22. With the entire eastern Uttar Pradesh, called `Poorvanchal' facing an acute power crisis for the past five days, all the functional power production units in the region have been synchronised to solve the power problem.

The region was reeling under power crisis after the Obra thermal power unit developed a technical snag.

Sources at the Obra unit, falling under the purview of UP power corporation, said the fifth unit (producing 50 MW) at power station `A' while the 12th and 13th units (producing 1200 MW) at power station `B' had tripped recently, aggravating the situation.

Obra power project chief general manager Yogendra Kumar Gupta told UNI that apart from the two units here, all the other units were being synchronised to provide power supply in the area. Besides, the Pipri water power project in Sonebhadra was producing 135 MW electricity daily which would also be used to solve the power crisis in the region.

He said efforts were on to repair the shut down units as soon as possible. The Obra unit's total generation capacity is 1447 MW while it was producing only about 632 MW power now.

The snag at the unit has led to a severe power crisis across various districts of eastern UP with 12 to 18 hours of power cuts becoming common. Coupled with the shortage of rainfall, farmers were the worst hit by the crisis, which has also caused the problem of drinking water.

People were holding protest demonstrations and burning the effigies of leaders at various places.

The districts where the problem was said to be serious include Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Bhadohi, Ballia, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Mau, Ghazipur, Azamgarh and Sonebhadra.

Meanwhile, severe power cuts plagued areas of Western U.P. also where people today protested against state electricity board as industries said they were incurring heavy losses.

Power supply to Ghaziabad, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh has been badly affected for the last two weeks with daily cuts going up to 15 hours although Noida and Baghpat had cuts lasting only three hours.

Chairman of All India Manufacturers Association, A C Khanna said that Industries have been badly affected in last 15 days and production has reduced by 60 to 70 per cent as labour remained idle.

Khanna also sent a fax to the Chief Minster Mulayam Singh Yadav urging him to reduce power cuts to three hours in Ghaziabad as was being done for Noida and Baghpat.

However the condition seems far from improving as UP electricity board expressed reservation in restoration of normal power supply saying that rains have caused a shortfall in power generation.

Managing Director of Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board, Western UP Avinash Awasthi told PTI that due to lack of rains, electricity supply has been affected as 6600 MW electricity is required against the supply of 4700 MW. In such a situation, it is difficult to supply electricity without resorting to power cuts, he said. People jammed the road in Muradnagar, Sahranpur and Ghaziabad demanding restoration of normal electricity supply.

UNI & PTI

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