GEB lifts power-cut for industries

vadodara: the gujarat electricity board (geb) has temporarily lifted from tuesday the three-hour evening power-cut on high- and low-tension non-continuous processing industries, imposed from november last. a geb source told the tnn on tuesday that the load-shedding was withdrawn up to march 25 and the decision would be reviewed afterwards. load-shedding was from 1800 hrs to 2100 hrs everyday .the decision on lifting the power-cut was taken following demands from the vadodara chamber of commerce and industries, forum of gujarat industries association and chambers, federation of gujarat industries and other industries associations. industries, which suffered heavy damage during the riots, had demanded withdrawal of restrictions on power usage so that they could work overtime and make up for the losses. geb was compelled to put restrictions on industries, its major revenue source, under pressure from farm and rural lobbies who allege that geb is "soft" towards industries. the unrestricted demand for power now stands at 8,350 mw, while restricted demand is 7,900 mw. the gap between demand and supply made the geb impose restrictions, sources said. the power system was operating at a critical level of 48.2 khz, much below the standard frequency level of 50 khz. there has been no evening power-cut in towns and rural areas following the riots. capacity shortage also added to geb''s woes. due to this, towns had been observing half-an-hour power cut in the evening on a rotation basis since november last.