HYDERABAD: The duration of the power cut in villages and minor towns has been increased to a maximum of six hours a day to cope with the shortage in availability.

The AP Transco and the distribution companies on Thursday began implementing the increased cut following the clearance for the power cut given by Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to save rabi crops. Villages suffered the worst situation on Wednesday night when supply went off following breakdown due to strong gales.

The ordeal for villages and towns is likely to continue till April 25 when the rabi demand begins to fall. A part of this relief, however, will be offset by the sudden increase in domestic demand due to the summer reaching its peak. The utilities want to meet the shortage by proper grid management and load relief at 33/11 KV levels, if necessary.

According to Transco officials, the area under rabi has gone up phenomenally this year with farmers anxious to take advantage of better groundwater availability and free power supply.

At present, the farm sector is consuming 45 per cent of the power generated.

Technical problems

Nearly 700 MW of State's capacity is on outage due to various technical problems, and the grid is left with only 7,700 MW. But, the demand has peaked at 170 million units per day. Increase in the cut has become necessary since help from outside sources like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Central stations is ruled out. A piquant situation cropped up over Srisailam project where the generation has been increased to give 17 million units to the grid. With the release of 45,000 cusecs of water through power generation daily, the storage fell to 821 ft on Thursday. Generation at this level will deplete the level to 800 ft in five days, the minimum required for power generation. The Transco renewed its plea to distribution compa nies not to exceed their allotted loads and cooperate in maintaining the proper grid frequency.

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