MERC allows Mahadiscom its way on load shedding

While conceding the Maharashtra Electricity Distribution Co's (Mahadiscom) demand for extending load shedding in the state, power regulator Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has come down heavily on the utility for tardy progress made on its various orders.

According to the commission's order issued today, urban and industrial conglomerations would continue to witness power cuts for 2.5 to 4 hours every day.

In rural areas, the load shedding hours have been increased from the present 8 hours to 12 hours daily. The regulator has asked Mahadiscom to publish the detailed schedule for power cuts in a week and give wide publicity to the new schedule.

The state is currently facing power shortage of 4,500 mw during peak hours and with the summer approaching, Mahadiscom expects it to go up further. In this scenario, Mahadiscom had asked the power regulator to extend the load shedding hours.

The power regulator has observed that it was extending the load shedding hours as Mahadiscom has presented it with a fait accompli.

The regulator has asked the utility to consider alternate power generation plans for cities such as Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nashik. Tata Power had proposed an alternate power generation plan for Pune using excessive captive generation capacity.

The commission pointed out that six months ago it had suggested carrying out feeder separation in villages, so power supply to agricultural pumps could be shut down during peak hours. But Mahadiscom's progress on this front has been far from satisfactory. Of 8,000 villages, only 49 villages have been covered by feeder separation programme till now.

The regulator has also asked industrial users to comply with its earlier order restricting power usage to 80-90 per cent of their average consumption. The order states in case of non-compliance by February end, the entire MIDC area under question will have to face additional power cuts.

The commission will hold a special hearing to review the progress made by Mahadiscom for implementing various schemes such as agricultural feeder separation programme, capacitor installation programme, which would have aided in mitigating the load shedding problem to some extent.

Despite repeated MERC directives, Mahadiscom has not submitted the data on feeder-level loads. The commission will review the progress on this directive along with special hearings on the progress of implementation of various schemes.

The commission has also advised Mahadiscom to approach the regional grid authorities for possible short-term measures to give additional relief to the state and the state government for a possible short-term assistance.