Officials admit to lack of schedule
Coimbatore district continued to reel under long hours of erratic power supply on Thursday and the situation is likely to remain so in the coming weeks.
For the last two days, power cuts in the city have lasted for nearly 12 hours or more a day. Some rural areas did not have supply for nearly 10 hours during day time on Thursday, apart from load shedding at night.
What made the situation worse were the unscheduled cuts. People had no clue when supply would be cut off or restored. Officials of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) here admitted that they did not have a definite schedule.
Representatives of industrial associations met TANGEDCO officials on Thursday seeking remedial measures. But there was no respite.
Ordeal to continue
“The indication is that we may have to continue with 12 hours of power cut a day for the next few months. We have sought continuous supply for the remaining hours so that the industries can operate,” says R.R. Balasundaram, president of The Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore.
A TANGEDCO official told The Hindu that Coimbatore would have to face 12 hours’ load shedding so long as there was no increase in the duration of power cut for Chennai.
The Corporation was trying to come out with a schedule for load shedding.
A note issued by the Corporation in Chennai admitted that on Wednesday, the duration of load shedding was eight to 10 hours in areas other than the city, where one-hour load shedding was being implemented.
Shortfall
It attributed Wednesday’s problem to the shortfall of around 4,000 megawatt which was essentially caused by erratic variation in wind generation.
The wind generation, which was 100 MW in the morning, went up to 2,800 MW in the evening.
In essence, the availability was only around 6,200 MW. This was why additional load shedding had to be forced in the morning even on a government holiday (Vinayaka Chaturthi).
“However, as the wind generation started increasing from 4 p.m., the load shedding was normalised step by step.”
Reasons
The Corporation mentioned the reasons for the increased duration of load shedding — failure of the southwest monsoon and consequent poor storage in hydro reservoirs; shortage of 1,125 MW caused by less production in Central generating stations due to a strike; poor quality of coal at the Talcher generation station; forced outages in other Central generating stations; and denial of 1,000 MW due to corridor constraints.
Keywords: erratic power supply, Coimbatore power crisis
Very bad power cut. This due to Tamilnadu govt problem. If not have the
confident to solve the problem. Get way. Very bad tamilnadu govt at
2011,2012
Thanks to the lack of foresight of the erstwhile DMK regime and its "dynamic" young minister called Arcot Veerasamy....the whole state suffers now. All he did was to raise the salaries of the employees. There is should be upper age limit for ministers of some important porfolios like power, drinking water, etc.
It's a surprise, how the govt in TN still has faith on the EB department?. The media too is ignorant of the foolish policies and the lethargy of the babus in the EB department. It's high time, they're shown the door. Unless the private players are allowed, I don't think the issue can be solved. And it's the people of TN, who should force their govt, to stop relying on the officials of EB department. I don't understand why there has been no thought on allowing private players supply and charge for power. This will definitely stop the state from going back to stone age.
This is really ridiculus...People from chennai city are from another planet..if we show discrimination within a state..GOD cant even help INDIA..No wonder we are ranked lowly by other countries...since they treat the citizens much better than we do...OLD age saying ..."Enna Vazham illai intha thirunatil" ..I can say many now ..
Today (Friday) till writing of this comment we have suffered 14 hours of cut from midnight till 6 PM. Further load shedding can be expected. If this is the way people are treated then God help Jayalalitha Government !
Even after 65 yrs of independence,the govt is unable to meet the basic
needs of it's people-this is clearly a case of misrule,otherwise,what
else?This country won't progress unless political parties have good
intentioned people with a motto of service to the people rather than
meeting their own selfish ends
Why waste salaries for these employees. Like any private co they can also resort to 50% cut in manpower therby saving cost, Any way there is no power and so no work for them.
It is pathetic that the present Government came to power with a promise
that power position would be improved with in months. But even after a
year, the position is gong from bad to worse.
Will Govt take moral responsiblity and resign. What is the use of
blaming previous Government
Just as Karnataka refuses to release any water, until tehir dams are full to brim, TN should also not release any electricity until every single light in TN is lighted. We have greater rights on electricity that we produce , than Karnataka on water that nature gives them for free.
Lot of excuses and no clear plan on how to resolve issues. Great going
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