The Hindu : Front Page : Power cut across State

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Monday, Jul 07, 2008
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Power cut across State

M. Malleswara Rao

HYDERABAD: An unexpected heavy power shortage has forced the AP Transco to impose an undeclared supply cut for four hours daily from Sunday in all cities and towns and for two hours for industries. The rural areas were already facing more than a six-hour cut in power supply for the past few days. However, the agriculture sector has been spared with Transco deciding to continue the seven-hour supply to the estimated 28 lakh pumpsets in the State in two spells daily, to facilitate sowing operations.

The four distribution companies in the State have been asked to restrict the outflow of electricity from the grid by resorting to load-shedding wherever possible. The cities facing the load shedding include Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Warangal and Rajahmundry. There was no scope of the State coming out of the shortage, estimated at nearly 30 million units (mu) a day, against the unrestricted demand of 185 mu unless full-scale power generation is taken up at hydel stations.

Twin blow

The dry spell dealt a twin blow to the State by increasing the demand and crippling the efforts to generate hydel power. Srisailam and other hydel units which generate around 62 mu daily around this time of the year, have hardly produced 8 mu. The situation got aggravated as there were not many who were prepared to sell power.

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