HYDERABAD: With a slight fall in the demand for power in
the agricultural sector, Chief Minister K. Rosaiah has ordered reduction of cut
in supply to small and medium scale industries in the State with immediate
effect.
A sizeable section of the farmers have stopped operation of
pumpsets as harvesting of rabi crop has begun, giving some relief to the
APTransco and distribution companies. Consequently, the unrestricted demand for
power, which hovered around 285 million units (mu) a day till recently, dropped
to 250 mu. However, the power utilities are now supplying only 220 mu.As the
agriculture load is expected to drop further, the duration of the cuts to
domestic, commercial and industrial sectors too is likely to be reduced now. At
a meeting here on Tuesday, the Chief Minister instructed Principal Secretary,
Energy, Suthirtha Bhattacharya, CMD of APTransco and CMDs of the four discoms to
restrict the “power holiday” for small and medium scale units for one day in a
week (excluding Sundays) as against two days earlier.
Uninterrupted supply
Sarat Chandra Seenu, chief general manager (Metro), AP
Central Power Distribution Company, said power was being supplied without
interruption to software firms in Hyderabad as they were working for five days a
week. Even in the case of BPOs, which work round the clock, uninterrupted supply
was being ensured. Enquiries revealed that similar relief was extended to
software facilities at Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada etc.
Mr. Rosaiah noted that the demand in Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation area, which was of the order of 1,500 MW now, was likely
to reach 5,000 MW by 2019 when more industrial clusters, hardware parks and
special economic zones would come up.
