Other States - Uttar Pradesh   

Protest against massive power cuts in U.P.

Many parts of the State without power since Monday evening

LUCKNOW: People at several places in Uttar Pradesh have protested against prolonged loadshedding as the authorities have resorted to heavy rostering to maintain the northern grid from collapsing and rendering large areas of the state without power.

Large-scale rostering was resorted to save the northern grid from collapse, power corporation sources here said on Tuesday.

Two units of 200 mw of Obra thermal power plant developed technical snag and had to be shut down on Monday making the situation worse, the sources said.

Faced with the prospect of grid collapse, the authorities resorted to rostering even in big cities and industries. The rostering was to the tune of 2300 mw, they said.

Several places in the State had to go without power since last evening prompting the people to protest, they said, adding there were reports of protests at Ferozabad, Varanasi, Bulandshahar, Lakhmipur-Kheri and some other places.

The thermal production stood at 1600 mw while the State was importing 2700 mw power from the Central sector, the sources said. The Northern Grid, which caters power to nine states, is under severe stress with its frequency hovering around 48 Hz, an alarming level. This is mainly due to its contributors lacking in generating adequate power and withdrawal by needy States, including U.P., exceeding the limits.

There have been several occasions in recent past that Northern Grid was on the verge of collapse, but the situation could be saved only by massive power cuts. In U.P., the gap between demand and supply is more than 2,000 MW with most districts been subjected to power cuts of period upto 14 hours.

There is no improvement in sight as two 500 MW, units, one each at Singrauli and Rihand are out for about a month -- the former due to overhauling, while the latter due to problem in its excitation, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) sources said.

Another 110 MW unit at Tanda Thermal Station is also not working adding to the power woes.

The availability to U.P. is hampered as the State has the largest share --35-40 per cent -- from the Central sector from these NTPC units. The performance of U.P. thermal units is even worse with generation at hardly 1,900 MW against the installed capacity of more than 4,000 MW and peak hour demand touching 7,000 MW, a rather bleak scenario.

The UPPCL had to withdraw about 2,900 MW of power from the Central Sector on Monday against its normal quota of about 2,300 MW. The State, with mainly thermal power stations, has installed capacity of 4,607 MW. - PTI & UNI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Governor tells Mulayam to `discipline' Minister
Rahul kick-starts Rae Bareli campaign
Protest against massive power cuts in U.P.

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu