Hyderabad to face three-hour power cuts

Hyderabad: With the mercury rising, the city and its surrounding areas are set to face up to three hours of power cuts.

The Central discom, had already announced the load relief of three hours from March but it was not implemented owing to a fall in power consumption due to the inclement weather.

It is for this reason that there have been few power cuts in the past fortnight. However, the last couple of days have seen 1-1.5 hours of power cuts in certain areas.

“Summer has set in and the weather is going to be sunny in the coming days,” said Mr Sudhakar, director of Meteorological Centre.

The total power demand in the state was around 255 million units per day in the first two weeks of the month. It has risen to 295-300 million units per day in last two days.

Officials say that the power demand will cross 320 MU by this month-end. Hence, the incre-ased hours of power shut-down will be implemented from now.

As per the revised schedules, the load relief will be of three hours daily, in two spells of one-and-a-half hours each.

“Due to Intermediate examinations from 9 am to noon, the three-hour power cuts at present are being imposed in two spells, from 6.30 am to 8 am and 12.30 pm to 2 pm, depending on the availability of power,” said the divisional engineer, CPDCL, Secunderabad.

District headquarters towns are likely to face four hours of power cuts while for towns and municipalities, it will be of six hours per day. Mandal headquarters will face eight hours of cuts and industries might also have power holidays.

The situation will improve if the power utilities tie up for sufficient supply.

The Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission, APERC, had allowed tie-ups for up to 2,000 MW under medium-term contracts. Presently, the power utilities have sourced 400 MW power from KSK Mahanandi Company till June 2016 and officials said that they were working towards getting another 600 MW of power in the coming days.