Unscheduled and long hours of power cuts continue to hit normal life across the Himalayan State, despite the State Government’s claim to have made additional arrangements to meet increasing energy needs of the consumers during the winter months ahead.
Power breakdown for on an average about four hours even in urban areas has become a routine affair. If the power schedule provided by the Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) is any indication power supply to the rural areas of particularly Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar remained disrupted for four hours.
Similarly, small towns of the State were not less affected on Tuesday as the power supply to these areas was reported to be disrupted for three hours, while common people in Haldwani also experienced a tough time as power supply to many parts of the city including Gasgodam Road area remained disrupted for over three hours from 1 pm on Tuesday.
Interestingly, when the issue of routine and unscheduled load shedding was taken up with the officials concerned of the power department, they did not agree with it saying there is no such crisis.
Power situation is smooth. Sometimes we have to resort to power cuts for routine repair and maintenance works, said H K Gururani, Superintending Engineer, Electricity Distribution Circle, Haldwani, while talking to The Pioneer.
However, he assured that the efforts are on to ensure smooth supply of power ahead.
It is worth mention here that keeping in view power crisis during winter season ahead, the UPCl has made arrangements for 4.8 million unit (mu) of power per day for six months i.e. from October 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 as the officials concerned informed.
Presently the gross availability of electricity in Uttarakhand remains around 26 mu per day i.e. 13 mu from indigenous sources, about 10 mu per day from the Central pool and rest from other sources, while the demand for power in the hill State has constantly been over 30 mu per day.
As has been experienced, demand for power steeply goes up during winter season, while gross availability of the electricity comes down accordingly, mainly due to sharp decline in power generation form indigenous sources.