Brace up for longer power cuts And pay more for it too

Brace up for longer power cuts And pay more for it too

Hemanth Kumar. Bangalore



If you thought the city is facing its worst power crisis right now, here's something even worse. The state government is now working on a scheduled power cut plan, which could be twice a day and of longer durations.
Think that's enough? Here's more. There's a power tariff hike coming up soon. The five electricity supply companies in the state have sought the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission's (KERC) clearance on Tuesday to hike the power tariff by 51 paise per unit across all categories of consumers. "If KERC clears it, the revised tariff is likely to be effected by January 2010," K Jairaj, principal secretary, energy department, told DNA. Here's why you should be worried:

What is the situation at present?
The state is going through one of the worst power crises and life has been thrown out of gear in Bangalore. This is being blamed on the poor rain in the state. The residents may not like it but the state government, it seems, is now proposing to impose a tariff hike of 51 paise per unit for all categories of consumers.
How will the present power situation affect the Bangalorean?
The city is already experiencing daily unscheduled power cuts of over two hours. Rural areas are facing over six hours of power cuts. The duration of power-cuts will go up if generation in hydel power stations does not improve.
"A decision on whether to announce a scheduled load-shedding will be taken in the next two days if rains continue to elude the state," energy minister, KS Eshwarappa said after a meeting with his department officials.
The only silver lining is that though the scheduled power cuts might be longer in duration than at present, the citizen will be able to better organise his life daily as he/she would know precisely when and for how long the power cut would occur.

Why is the power crisis happening?
It is mainly because of lack of rains, due to a weak monsoon. The water levels in the reservoirs are down and that is inadequate to generate enough power at the hydel power stations in the state to meet the demand. The present storage in the reservoirs could last for just another nine days unless state receives copious rains. State has a present demand of about 93 million units per day and the supply is around 83mu.
Of this, Bangalore alone requires a lion's share of about 35-40 mu per day. It is basically because the demand has far exceeded the supply that the state is now facing a power crisis.