Staggered holiday for industrial areas to begin tomorrow

Staggered holiday for industrial areas to begin tomorrow

B.S. Satish Kumar

It will help manage peak hour power shortage in Bangalore city

Holiday schedule for prominent industrial areas has been worked out

Bangalore city is facing a shortage of about 150 MW during peak hours

BANGALORE: The staggered holiday for industrial areas in and around Bangalore will come into effect on Monday to help manage peak hour power supply without enforcing loadshedding in Bangalore city.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of representatives of the industry and the officials of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) here on Saturday.

According to sources, a holiday schedule for prominent industrial areas in Bangalore city and surrounding areas has been worked out.

According to it, industrial areas of Peenya will have weekly holiday on Monday instead of Sunday. Industrial areas of Hoody, Krishnarajapuram, Whitefield and surrounding areas will close on Tuesday. Industries in Electronics City, HSR Layout and Naganathapura will close on Wednesdays, while Thursday will be a holiday for EHT (Extra High Tension) consumers.

Industrial areas on the outskirts of Bangalore, including Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural, and Ramanagara will have weekly holiday either on Friday or Saturday.

Industrial estates in Ramanagara and Chandapura in Anekal taluk will close on Friday, while those in Yelahanka and Nelamangala will remain shut on Saturday.

The main idea is to ensure that industrial areas have their weekly holidays on different days of the week instead of all of them closing down on Sunday. This will help evenly spread the demand for power throughout the week instead of the present system where the power consumption is very high on weekdays, but drastically reduces on Sundays.

Staggered holiday for industrial areas is expected to reduce the power consumption on weekdays by about 130 MW. At present, Bangalore city is facing a shortage of about 150 MW during peak hours. The shortage is around 250 MW when the power consumption in areas around Bangalore city is also considered.

However, there are some problems related to staggered holidays as not all the industrial areas, barring Peenya, have only industries. Many of these industrial areas also have a small number of other categories of consumers for whom the power supply cannot be cut on the designated holidays for industrial areas.