Hyderabad to face six-hour power cuts in March

Hyderabad: The city may face up to six hours of power cuts as the power utilities have proposed to scale up the outages from March onwards.

As per internal documents, the distribution companies (discoms) have proposed six-hour power cuts in cities and more than 16 hours in the rural areas in March and the situation is expected to worsen as the mercury rises.

The discoms’ proposal has specified that the deficit in March will be close to 70 million units per day and the power cuts will have to be increased by three times in city areas.

Currently, cities are experiencing two hours of official cuts, and two to three hours of additional unsche­duled cuts. Towns are seeing 12-hour official cuts and rural areas are getting supply only at night.

Power utilities have once again failed to tie up sufficient electricity supply from other sources in adva­nce, leading to a huge deficit. Power generation has been stopped at the Srisailam Hydel Power Project to save water for the summer months.

Currently, the power utilities have tied up for 400 MW from KSK Mahanadi Comp­any from October 2013 up to June 2016. This is the only medium term-up currently available, even though the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission had allowed tie-ups up to 2,000 MW under medium-term contracts.

The power utilities had purchased 2,000 MW under medium term contracts. The synchronisation of national grid has been completed recently, allowing transmission of up to 2,000 MW to the southern region.

AP can expect up to 600 MW, according to officials. However, the state has not yet tied up for power purchases via the grid so far, and there is the possibility of other states booking the electricity in advance.

“We are in the process of tying up for the transmission corridor and up to 600 MW of energy can come to the state. However, despite the tie-ups, 24-hour supply cannot be assured at any cost. The cuts are going to increase as the power defi­cit is going to increase drastically in March. The power demand is expected to be unusually high and will easily cross 320 mu in March,” said a senior official.