To ensure 7-hour continuous power supply to agriculture sector, the Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (SPDCL) has increased the power cuts to industry and domestic sector.
The revised load relief came into force from Thursday. The SPDCL authorities said the additional power-cut was being imposed in view of gap between demand and supply. The power cut in the city and in district headquarters, Machilipatnam, will be four hours against existing two hours; it is five hour in all for other municipalities, mandal headquarters where intermediate examination centres were notified; and six hours in sub station headquarters and mandal headquarters where no intermediate examination centres were notified.
The State Government has directed the Discoms to provide 7-hour power supply during daytime to the agriculture sector. Likewise, it also told the power authorities not to impose load relief to domestic sector during night time. As the demand and supply is not matching during daytime, the SPDCL authorities have decided to increase the power cut to domestic sector and industry.
Hitherto, the SPDCL was supplying power to agriculture during night also to provide power to domestic sector. There is a phenomenal increase in demand for power from February 24 onwards. The demand is touching 11 million units (MU) to 11.5 MU per day as against allocated 9.4 MU per day. There are 74,500 agricultural connections in the district consuming 2.5 MU, on average, per day. Nearly 30 to 40 per cent of the allocated power is consumed by the industries.
The SPDCL has already asked the industries to limit their power requirements to 60 per cent of recorded maximum demand. The industries would also have to limit their load to 60 per cent. The SPDCL has been implementing a load relief of 4 lakh units per day for industries.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) city secretary Ch. Babu Rao decried the increase in the power cuts. He feared that industry would suffer badly if the power cuts and power holidays were not lifted.
