The Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) has curtailed power supply to rural areas, small towns and tehsil headquarters following the rising demand due to soaring temperature.

Officially, supply to rural areas is pegged at 16 hours, to nagar panchayat towns at 21 hours and tehsil headquarters at over 21 hours, while district headquarters, municipal corporations and big cities are exempted from power cuts.

The UPPCL has however claimed that there is no major power crisis in the state.

Official sources admitted that load shedding did happen due to local faults but the same was unavoidable due to heavy load on power distribution.

The heat wave and the spurt in demand, leading to overloading of power distribution networks, have triggered the power crisis in Uttar Pradesh. The crisis is more acute in villages and small towns which often face emergency load shedding for three to five hours every day in addition to the frequent power disruptions caused by local faults.

As per data available with the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC), villages are getting power supply on most days for 13-14 hours, nagar panchayats and tehsil headquarters for 18-19 hours against the official schedule of 21 hours and 30 minutes. The district headquarters and big cities are so far exempted from power cuts but are also suffering due to frequent breakdown in power supply due to faults in overloaded transformers and melting of overheated and overburdened underground cables and overhead lines.

The coal stock position of thermal power plants of UP Thermal Power Generation Corporation remains critical. The four plants are at Anpara 2,630 MW, Harduaganj 1,265 MW, Obra 1,094 and Parichha 1,140 MW.

As per the fuel management division of Central Electricity Authority, against the normative stock of 1,968 MT, the total availability is 400 MT or 21 per cent. As per normative standards, thermal plants should have 22.1 days stock of coal.

The Anpara plant is operating at a plant load factor of 67 per cent, Harduaganj 34.3 per cent, Obra 54.3 per cent and Parichha 40.5 per cent.

Sources in the UPPCL said that due to early onset of summer, the state was experiencing record demand in April, coupled with curtailment in generation because of technical issues. They said that the UPPCL was keeping a constant watch on the situation and all efforts were being made to ensure power supply to consumers as per the roster.

The peak demand in the state recorded in April was more than 21,000 MW, which is in excess of 2,000 MW as compared to the corresponding period last year. The state is said to be grappling with a demand-supply gap of around 2,000 MW.

Sources in UPPCL said that while the demand-supply gap was not very significant, the real challenge was recurring breakdown of power supply due to overloading of transmission and distribution networks.