The four tedious hours a day without power are back to haunt the city. On Wednesday morning, many areas in the city woke up to a two-hour power cut, resumed after lull of over a month. Two more hours followed in the noon, much to the chagrin of the consumers.
The Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana Limited, later in the day, only confirmed the load reliefs imposed, by announcing the revised schedules.
District headquarters have gone back to power cuts of five hours a day, while for towns/municipalities it will be six hours, and mandal headquarters, eight hours per day, the official informed. Industrial power holidays, which had been revoked a month ago, are very likely to be resumed very soon.
The city has been divided into three groups, A, B and C, and imposed with staggered power cuts of four hours a day, enforced in two spells of two hours each between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
These are, by far, the most lengthy load relief schedules imposed in the non-summer months in the recent past. Water regulation to both Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar hydro power stations is cited as reason for the shortage.
“As long as there were inflows, we were allowed to generate power. Now, the Irrigation authorities have asked both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States to cut down the generation, as there are no inflows,” a Discom official informed. Water allocation for both States together has been cut down from 60,000 cusecs to 25,000 cusecs, resulting in generation reduced by seven million units. While the TSSPDCL requires 4,100 MW of power, only 3,400 MW is available now, with the remaining 700 MW covered through load reliefs. Meanwhile, power generation was stalled at the NTPC Limited in Ramagundam on Wednesday following a technical snag in the 500 MW seventh unit.
