With power shortages getting more critical, a ‘power holiday’ for both industrial and domestic sectors becomes inevitable once again, indicate officials. While a two-day power shutdown has been announced for the industrial sector, mandal headquarters are experiencing four-hour scheduled cuts in the domestic sector every day. The manufacturing sector is incurring estimated losses of `800 crore daily, or around Rs 6,400 crore a month due to the power shortage.

Even though three of the four units that were facing technical failures have been restored, the power deficit was still around 20 MU on Tuesday and is expected to touch 35 MU in March, even with all the units generating at 100 per cent capacity. Industrial organisations fear that the power situation will be worse than the projected situation. The discoms have projected 20 per cent power cuts for the industrial sector in the month of March, 40 per cent in April and 30 per cent in May.

“But the industrial sector is already experiencing nearly 20 per cent cuts in February itself and in March, the cuts are likely to exceed the projected cuts. Due to the poor situation the industrial sector is going to suffer enormously,” warned Mr M.V. Rajeshwara Rao, secretary general, Fappci.