Date:13/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/13/stories/2008081355790100.htm

Front Page

No power cut from August 15

Special Correspondent

Four-hour cut in rural areas will, however, continue

WATER POWER: Water gushing through floodgates of Jurala dam on Tuesday.

HYDERABAD: Power cuts imposed in the State in the wake of acute energy shortage will be lifted in two to three days as generation was finally resumed from the Srisailam project following inflow of one lakh cusecs of water into the dam from the upper reaches of the Krishna.

Also, coal supply to thermal stations, from Singareni as well as Mahanadi coalfields and from abroad, improved, giving the much-needed boost to power generation.

The cumulative effect of the fall in demand due to rain, inflows into Jurala and Srisailam dams and improvement in coal supply was that the government decided on Tuesday to immediately reduce the duration of the power cut and completely scrap it in cities and towns from August 15. The four-hour power cut in rural areas will, however, continue. Energy Minister Mohd Ali Shabbir, who spoke to reporters after Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy reviewed the power situation here on Tuesday, said the storage in Srisailam was likely to improve by 50 tmcft in the next few days, as a heavy inflow of 5 lakh cusecs was expected from the Almatti dam and the Tungabhadra.

Meanwhile, the contribution of hydel stations in the State, which dropped to eight million units a day, picked up and reached 20 mu. Over 250 MW of power out of the 750 MW of installed capacity in the Sileru complex is also being added to the grid.

Nagarjunasagar

There are also good prospects of generation being resumed in Nagarjunasagar which has an installed capacity of 965 MW.