Domestic consumers face power cuts in Kasauli, Solan

Ambika Sharma

Solan, January 19

The cash-strapped HP State Electricity Board Limited (HPSEBL) has started imposing power cuts on the domestic consumers to meet the shortage of power.

Unrest in Electricity board

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• The HP State Electricity Board Limited is already facing employee unrest owing to non-payment of salaries and pension across the state. With few funds to purchase adequate power to meet the requirements of the consumers, the board has chosen the easiest way of imposing power cuts.
• TheBaddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial area, however, faced no power cut on Friday. Normally, whenever there is a power shortage, the cut is first imposed on the commercial users while the domestic sector is not disturbed.

The board is already facing employee unrest owing to non-payment of salaries and pension across the state. With few funds to purchase adequate power to meet the requirements of the consumers, the board has chosen the easiest way of imposing power cuts.

The industrial area of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh, however, faced no power cut today. Ideally whenever there is a power shortage, the cut is first imposed on the commercial users while the domestic sector is not disturbed.

“A major part of the power requirement is met by the state by purchases but since the financial position of the board is grim, it is unable to purchase the requisite power during these days,” confirmed Rakesh Thakur, board’s Chief Engineer.

The state load dispatch centre, which monitors the power scenario in the state, directed the officials to undertake load shedding and power cuts up to 30 minutes were imposed today at Kasauli, Solan and Kandaghat areas in Solan as well as Rajgarh in Sirmaur district. As against the requirement of 70 MVA power, 35 MVA was unavailable due to load shedding as per the message received by the power officials from the state load dispatch centre today.

Since this is the peak time of power usage, the residents were forced to do without electricity during this winter season. It specially inconvenienced the elderly persons who find it difficult to bear the bone chilling cold. The unannounced power cuts brought the working of computer-based offices like banks, post offices, computer centres, etc., to a standstill.

“The Kasauli area faced a cut of half an hour at 10 am today. Power shedding of 4.5 MVA was undertaken in the morning as per the directions of the state load dispatch centre. The total requirement of the Kasauli area is 12 MVA,” said Vikas , Executive Engineer, HSEBL, Parwanoo.

Though a cut of half an hour was imposed yesterday too, but officials attributed it to a local technical problem.