Date:20/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/20/stories/2006022006700600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Power cut in A.P. rural areas, towns

Special Correspondent

Major cities, including Hyderabad, and HT users exempted

The cut is likely to continue till March-end

The State grid has an installed capacity of 11,100 MW, but is able to use only about 8,600 MW

HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh Transco and the four distribution companies began implementing an undeclared one to two-hour power cut in the rural areas and minor towns in the State on Sunday to cope with the power shortage. However, Hyderabad and major cities such as Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Warangal have been fully exempted from the cut, which is being implemented by the utilities in the name of load-shedding. HT users and industries also will be spared. The cut is likely to continue up to March-end when the rabi season reaches a peak and not by the middle of that month due to late sowing in almost all districts. The duration of the cut also may increase up to four hours by then following a wide gap between demand and supply.

By rotation

A senior Vidyut Soudha official said the feeders at the 33/11 kv level would be switched off for one to two hours by rotation covering the rural areas and minor towns. The supply might be cut off to major towns and district headquarters also if they were served incidentally by rural feeders. Efforts, however, would be made to avoid such a situation. Power engineers have been strictly instructed not to entertain pulls and pressures from MLAs and high placed people to run agricultural pumpsets indiscriminately.

The unrestricted demand from all sectors, including agriculture, is revolving around 180 millions units a day these days, whereas the supply made on Saturday was 167 mu — a gap of 13 mu. The shortage is set to touch 20 mu by March-end. The State grid has an installed capacity of 11,100 MW, but it is able to use only about 8,600 MW out of this.

The shortage has been caused by four factors — restriction on utilisation of storages in Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar for power generation, fall in natural gas supply by 30 per cent to gas-based units, outage of some Central stations for annual repairs and lack of scope to purchase power from other States/regions.

YSR reviews situation

Increased agricultural load, claiming nearly 40 per cent of the power generated, has added to the woes of Transco. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy at a review meeting on the power situation here asked Transco CMD Rachel Chatterjee and other officials to avoid inconvenience wherever possible, to ensure supply to the agriculture sector and save standing crops.