Soaring mercury, coal shortage take Maharashtra on the brink of load shedding

Representative Image

After many years, Maharashtra is staring at compulsory power cuts as demand is higher than supply, the state discom announced on Monday, pegging the shortages at over 2,500 mw. The "load shedding", which entails compulsory power cuts in select areas, will be carried out both in urban and rural areas, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company said in a statement.

The growing demand for power and shortages of coal have resulted in a deficit of 2,500-3,000 mw in power. To bridge the same, MSEDCL will be resorting to load shedding as per the guidelines set by Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission, the statement said. It, however, did not specify any other details on the areas where the power cut will be experienced or its durations.

The state, which otherwise prides itself on being one of the most progressive ones and home to industry, was notorious for load shedding till a few years ago. A large part of the country's financial capital does not fall under MSEDCL's service area, and those pockets were excluded from load shedding in the past instances. The MSEDCL statement said there is a record demand for over 28,000 mw of power, which is about 4,000 mw higher than last year's. MSEDCL's demand alone has touched up to 24,800 mw and the night demand is also up to 23,000 mw.

The MSEDCL has contracted 37,900 mw of power, of which 33,700 mw is installed capacity and 62 per cent of this comes from the coal-fired thermal power plants, the statement said. However, due to a country-wide shortage of coal, there is a shortage in generation from the contracted thermal power plants, it said, pegging the shortfall from coal plants alone at 6,000 mw.

Efforts to get power from alternative sources are on at a war footing, which includes availing 673 mw from NTPC till June 25, 760 mw from CGPL, of which 410 mw is from Tuesday midnight. The state discom's statement also claimed that neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has halved power supply to industrial consumers, while Gujarat does not provide power to industrial consumers once a week. "We appeal to consumers to cooperate in these difficult times, and use power sparingly," the statement appealed.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever