If there is some commonality shared by the heterogeneous Hyderabad population these days, it is an uncertain wait for restoration of power supply. Power is more noticed for its presence now, as its absence has become the norm.
Shedding even the usual taboo over power cuts during nights, the electricity authorities are applying their shears indiscriminately. Lengthy midnight power cuts have become the order of the day. The four-hour load relief schedule announced by the Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana (TSSPDCL) has become a subject of scorn, as the actual hours of outages extend to six or seven hours a day.
“Power goes off often without notice, apart from the scheduled four hours. Sometimes the timings are altered without notice. At least five days a week, we are enduring blackouts of an hour or two more than the four scheduled hours,” says Sai Kumar, a resident of Tarnaka.
On Friday for instance, all the peripheral areas of the city which fall under the Ranga Reddy Zone of TSSPDCL experienced four spells of outages, amounting to a total of seven hours.
Industries are facing one official weekly power holiday, but the industry bodies claim that it is besides the weekly day off. “Power is cut off even on weekly holidays. We are enduring huge production losses. Though heavy industries are allowed to buy power under Open Access, such power costs a lot, and small and medium industries cannot afford it. We are unable to see light at the end of the tunnel,” despairs Shivakumar Rungta, President of FAPCCI. Extended summer and absence of gap for overhauling of power generation units are worsening the situation.
Units of various plants in Andhra Pradesh as well as Telangana are conking out on daily basis. As per the fresh updates, about six units in private as well as government power generation plants broke down on Friday, and coupled with lack of coal supply to some other units, it resulted in a fresh loss of generation up to 760 MW for Telangana which is already reeling under a shortage of over 1,000 MW.
The units include one each in NTPC, Ramagundam, NTPC Simhadri, VTPS, Simhapuri, among others. However, the VTPS unit was restored immediately and production resumed. Two more units in KTPS and RTPP have been under overhaul.
