Mahavitaran promises to maintain present power cut hours

Mahavitaran has assured to maintain the present power cut hours even during the summer, as the discom had already tied up for 700Mw for these crucial months from various sources.

Currently, Maharashtra is facing a shortage of 4,800Mw. Various parts of the state have to face power cuts between four and 12.

Speaking to mediapersons, discom managing director, AB Pandey said, "According to Monday's figures, the power shortage stood at 4,500Mw during peak hours in the morning and 4,800Mw during evening hours. This means, we maintained our demand and supply at the level of last December and this despite the increase in demand, which was 1,500Mw during the last one year. We are now getting around 1200Mw of power consistently courtesy Dabhol. Besides, we had managed to tie up power from some other sources."

He said by the time summer approaches, they would get an additional 700Mw of power.

"We will get synchronised by March and hope to get around 400Mw from Dabhol power plant's third block, around 300Mw from NTPC's Seepat power plant and another 100Mw from the Jindal group's power plant in Chhattisgarh and maintain the current load shedding hours," he said.

The discom completed its feeder separation programme in more than 13,000 villages over the last one year. These villages will also have power cuts but only for five to six hours like other semi-urban areas by the end of this year.

"We hope to implement the separation of agriculture and domestic feeder programme in all the 32,000 villages of the state and bring them on a par with semi-urban areas," Pandey said.