Maha extends power cuts for industry

Industry in Maharashtra will have to face power cut for 24 hours in a week, starting midnight, instead of 16 hours earlier, in the wake of drought-like situation in the state.

Below-normal rainfall has resulted in an increase in demand from domestic, commercial and agricultural sectors. Officials of the state-owned power distribution utility, Mahavitaran, warned that if this (outage) doesn’t help improve the situation, then hours of power cuts will be increased substantially.

The decision was taken at a meeting between Mahavitaran officials and state Energy Minister Dilip Walse-Patil.

Normally, with the onset of monsoon, demand for power from domestic, commercial and agricultural sector reduces substantially. Power consumption on account of using fans and air-conditioners also dips. Besides, water is not required to be drawn from wells, tube wells and other sources of irrigation for agriculture.

At present, the gap between demand and availability of power has reached to 4,900 Mw to 5,000 Mw.

With weekly power cut for industry increased by eight hours, an additional 250 Mw of power will be made available.

Mahavitaran officials also pointed out that according to the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) order they can’t increase the daily power cut in the rural areas beyond 12 hours. If required, outages in the industrial parks have to be increased to ensure that rural areas don’t face power cut in excess of 12 hours a day.

The minister, however, accepted the industries’ demand that additional power cuts should not be staggered. Uniterrupted power cut helps industry fix the timings for production and adjust the shifts of workers.

He also assured the industry to take up their demand with cabinet, to allow those industries, who have captive generation capacity to get the set-off on VAT paid by them on purchase of diesel and furnace oil.