Ruchika M. Khanna
Tribune News ServicePanchkula, July 22
Haryana Power Utilities is spending Rs 15 crore to Rs 16 crore each day for buying power from Himachal Pradesh and Orissa to meet the increasing demands of power.
With the weather still showing no signs of relenting, the State Power Utilities have been forced to impose three- hour power cuts on urban consumers and 10- hour cut on industrial consumers. The agriculture consumer is getting uninterrupted three-phase power supply for eight hours during the day, but lighting load (two phase supply from 7 pm to 6 am) is being imposed in the rural sectors.
For the past two months, the state has been reeling under a severe power crisis. All urban estates have been allotted a slot for imposing scheduled power cuts. However, fluctuations in the frequency of power (the required frequency is 50 cycles per second, but if it falls below 49 cycles per second, the system has to be shut down), are causing frequent system shutdowns and thus the unscheduled power cuts, sometimes stretching to six to eight hours a day.
Though the thermal power plants in the state are running to their full capacity, there is a huge gap in the demand and supply, thus forcing the Power Utilities to buy power from other sources. Officials in Power Utilities say that the daily requirement has increased to about 750 lakh units (LU's) over the past fortnight. Yet there is a shortfall of about 50 LUs. Other than generating 190 LUs of power from the state's own generation sources, the state is getting 340 LUs from the committed sources (National Thermal Power Corporation, National Hydro Power Corporation, Nuclear Power Corporation and Bhakra project).
Other than this, the state has made bilateral Power Purchase Agreements with Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Department (for 14 LU's per day); from Nathpa Jakhri project (for 80 LU's); Mallana Hydel Project in Himachal (for 10- 12 LU's); NTPC Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (36 LU's from Orissa); and Power Trading Corporation from Orissa ( 24 LUs).
The Director, Technical, Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN), Mr R.K. Jain, says that the state is also overdrawing 30 to 50 LUs power from the Northern Grid each day to ensure adequate supply.
