HYDERABAD: All towns in the State down to mandal headquarters will face power cut for an unspecified duration daily hereafter. Cities like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, however, have been exempted from the ordeal.

Taking note of the present power shortage revolving around 15-20 million units (mu) a day, the Government on Wednesday ordered the AP Transco to cut supply to the urban areas wherever required to save crops. The situation is likely to continue till November when kharif season comes to a close.

Announcing this at a press conference here, Energy Minister Mohd. Ali Shabbir and AP Transco CMD Rachel Chatterjee said the State had been already overdrawing 18 mu daily from the Central generation stations at a cost of Rs. 8 crores a day to meet the increased demand. It had paid a huge sum of Rs. 184 crores for 574 mu of power overdrawn from April 10 to September 5. "We will take any risk and make any level of sacrifice to save the last acre of the crop," the Minister declared. They attributed the shortage to the steep hike in demand following abrupt increase in agriculture load to 35 per cent, with farmers sowing vast areas going by initial good rain. The demand reached an all-time high of 175 mu on August 26 compared to 154 mu the same day last year. The grid lost an installed capacity of about 1,500 MW with seven thermal units at different places developing technical snags, the most important among them being 500-MW first unit of Simhadri at Visakhapatnam.

Inflows

Asked whether plenty of water available in Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar were not useful, the Minister said the inflows reached the two projects "in lakhs of cusecs" continuously for three months last year, enabling non-stop operation of their hydel stations. This year, the inflows were heavy but for a limited period. If generation was pushed up at Srisailam now, the water would simply go waste into the sea as Nagarjunasagar was already full. Moreover, there was need to preserve water for future needs.

Mr. Shabbir said while shortage continued, districts began to draw more power than their quota. Even then, the utilities were able to ensure uninterrupted seven-hour supply to the agriculture sector except from August 29 to September 4 when the grid faced severe problems.

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