H.D. Revanna

BANGALORE: The State Government will not enforce loadshedding in urban areas in March and April as students will be preparing for their examinations, Minister for Energy H.D. Revanna has said.

Addressing presspersons here on Thursday, he said the Government had requested the Centre to allocate an additional 500 MW of power to the State to tide over the shortage. But the Centre had rejected it. Now, efforts were on to purchase 50 MW of power daily from the Power Trading Corporation, New Delhi, he said.

Mr. Revanna said the Cabinet sub-committee, comprising Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minster B.S. Yediyurappa, Medical Education Minister V.S. Acharya, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister C.M. Udasi and himself, had reviewed the power situation in the State. The daily power consumption stood at 130 million units as against the generation of 115 million units.

The State had been over-drawing 15 million units per day from the central grid. The State was facing a shortage of 500 MW daily, Mr. Revanna said. The Minister said Mr. Kumaraswamy had instructed KPTCL and the five distribution companies to resort to loadshedding in such a way that students, who would be preparing for their examinations in cities and towns, were not be put to hardship. The KPTCL had been enforcing unscheduled loadshedding in rural areas since last month.

With the daily power consumption estimated to witness an unprecedented increase in the next two months, the State has to purchase power from its neighbours. The next Cabinet meeting would take a final decision on purchase of power from other States.

The State would add 2000 MW of power in the next 18 months by spending Rs. 4,000 crore, he added.

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