After facing the brunt of the natural calamities that wrecked havoc in the entire State, residents are now facing the acute shortage of electricity in the State. Due to the huge gap between demand and supply of electricity in the State, Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) was forced to emergency rostering of 61.9970 million units due to low frequency condition in the last month.
The department had not even experienced surplus on a single day energy as the power generation was badly affected in the State-run hydro power projects in the last month. Since power banking was not done by the department for a single day in the last month, the department was overloaded with the 20.2848 million units of the electricity.
The gross demand of electricity in the State was 1065.7540 million units whereas the availability of the electricity was 825.5296 million units in the previous month. Unable to cope up with the growing demand of electricity in the State after facing the brunt of the natural calamities, the department faced the shortage of record 240.224 million units of electricity in the state. Even after procuring electricity from the private players on regular intervals, the department over-withdrew 10.9652 million units of electricity in order to meet with demand of electricity.
It is also equally important to mention here is that the state run hydro power projects on the average of 13.1772 million units generated 408.4930 million units of the electricity in the last month. Well established sources revealed that the department is not in position to do energy banking for its lean time especially during winter. The natural catastrophe that wrecked havoc in the entire state has forced the department to procure electricity from the private electricity players in order to meet with the demand of electricity in the State.
After expressing concern over the poor rate of electricity generation in the state run hydro power projects in the State, one of the department sources, who wished anonymity told The Pioneer that the department has been procuring electricity on regular basis in order to meet with the growing demand of electricity in the State. He hoped that the power generation will improve in the near future. He told that plans are in the pipeline to procure more number of electricity at much lower prices from the private electricity producers in order to meet with the daily power demand of the State in the near future.