Poor rain, hydel power shortfall leads to unscheduled power cuts

Bhopal: Erratic monsoon this year has hit hydel power generation in the state and as farmers gear up for Rabi crops, both agricultural and domestic consumers are bearing the brunt of unscheduled power cuts. If the present situation on monsoon persists, the demand and supply gap is bound to increase by October when farm activities are at a peak. Presently the demand-supply gap ranges from 0.8% to 5%.Scanty rainfall in the state this year had forced chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently to go public about the power crisis staring at the state.

Power supplied for the agricultural uses had to be trimmed to 7 hours, but unscheduled power cuts hit cities for the first four days of this month.Officials said that after the rain on Tuesday there has been some improvement and a dip in demand. They urged the consumers to conserve energy and use it efficiently in the eye of the actual peak demand season that starts from October.Reports assessed by TOI suggest that there was shortage of energy between September 1 to September 4, however prior to this date there were no unscheduled power cuts. From September 2, officials had reduced the overall 10-hour power supply that was provided for agricultural use to 7 hours, but this was also not enough. There had to be power cuts across all the discoms. Sources from the energy department said that mostly it was the rural areas which remained affected.Among the first four days of this month, September 1, remained most affected while on September 2 it was only for 1 hour between 1 pm and 2 pm when there was uninterrupted power supply across all the three discoms. Overall, a total of 302 million units of energy was supplied on this date with the shortfall being 16 million units or 5.46%.Sources said that even hydel energy support was utilized to the maximum, it is wrong to say that there was inadequate hydel power support, power banking done with other states had to be reversed and even power had to be purchased from the markets to ensure that at least 7-hour energy is supplied to the farmers during the peak irrigation season. Situation had become such because there was unprecedented increase in demand, as normally there is around 10,000 MW demand in the state, preparations were for 12,000 MW but it even peaked to more than 14,000 MW, which is a rare thing happening at this point of time, added sources. When contacted over the issue, managing director of the Madhya Pradesh power management company limited, M R Raghuraj said, “We appeal the users to conserve energy and use it efficiently, this is not valid for this point of time only but it is always a valid argument, we are also preparing for the actual peak season that starts from October onwards, every unit conserved now will be useful then. As far as the present situation is concerned, the energy position has improved a lot post rainfall on Tuesday, things are returning to normalcy. Irrigation supply schedule will be revised as soon as possible. And there should be no unscheduled load shedding now.”
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