The State of Uttarakhand is increasingly depending upon its neighbour Himachal Pradesh (HP) for providing power to its people. From July 25 the State is continuously purchasing 2.5 Million Units (MUs) of power daily from HP and due to increased demand and low production from its Hydro power stations the Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) has sought additional 1 MU of power from its power surplus neighbour.
The UPCl has to cough out Rs70 lakh daily for purchasing 2.5 MU of power from Himachal Pradesh and the extra 1 MU of power purchase would mean that the state would be poorer by Rs 1 Crore daily. The state has entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with HP to purchase power till September 30 and due to the reduced production form its power stations it is almost certain that UPCl would extend the MOU.
The bleak power situation in the State is triggered by less generation from its hydropower stations. The 198 MW Kalagarh Power plant is closed for more than a month now similarly the 42 MW Khatima power plant is also not generating any power for some days. The 90 MW Maneri Bhali Phase I plant generated only 60 MW power on Wednesday.
The reduced generation is taking its toll on the people and the industrial units of the State. The rural areas are worst affected by the irregular supplies and low voltage problems. Hansraj Singh a resident of Bantholi village of Pauri Garhwal district said that the power supply was restored after three days in the village. He informed that power supplies are very erratic which causes problems. The villages in the vicinity of capital Dehradun are also suffering from the unscheduled power outages; one of the resident of Harrawala said that the for last many days there is an outage of two to three hours in the morning which has forced the people to change their daily routine. The low voltage is also causing reduced water supplies in many areas of the state. When contacted the Spokesperson of UPCl Madhusudan said that apart from a cut of 1.30 hours till 4 pm on the non continuous industry of Garhwal and Kumaon division the corporation did not exercised any cut on Thursday.
He said that the local issues like uprooting of electric poles or damage to the wires could cause local outages. The UPCl spokesperson added that the corporation in undertaking an extensive project to change the old transformers due which the residents face some inconvenience.