E-Paper
State capital in for rostering
THIS YEAR?s summers are going to be a lot hotter for the Lucknowites. Soon the State capital will witness a four-hour power cut every day. In other cities and towns, life will be even more difficult as they are all set to undergo an additional rostering of 3-4 hours a day.
THIS YEAR’s summers are going to be a lot hotter for the Lucknowites. Soon the State capital will witness a four-hour power cut every day.
In other cities and towns, life will be even more difficult as they are all set to undergo an additional rostering of 3-4 hours a day.
Thanks to the Assembly polls, which are not very far away. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has promised the villagers 16 hours of uninterrupted power supply and he has issued directions to the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) to this effect.
Power bosses meanwhile have started chalking out plans how best to translate the CM’s announcement into action at the earliest.
However, it remains a big challenge before them to supply 16-hour of electricity to villages against 8-10 hour of supply the villages are getting at present.
Since there is extreme shortage of electricity and there is a limit to which electricity can be purchased from the Central Government powerhouses, the UPPCL has decided to impose more power cuts on cities and start resorting to rostering in some cities which are otherwise exempted by virtue of their VIP status. The power to be saved from rostering in cities will be given to villages.
During the discussions, the idea found echo that no such action plan would succeed unless power cuts were imposed on the State Capital where the power load was as high as around 500 MW, more than in any other town. As per the plan, to be approved by the chief minister, the State Capital is to be brought under power cuts for four hours, may be in two shifts of two hours each.
Likewise, there is a proposal to make more power cuts in other cities. “One can expect 3-4 hours of additional cuts in cities,” said a senior UPPCL officer. For example, district headquarters at present got 14 hours of power a day. Now under the revised scheduled this was likely to be reduced to 10 hours. Divisional headquarters may get only 12 hours of supply instead of 15 hours they were getting, he revealed.
Lucknow is not the only city that is exempted from official power cuts. More than a dozen towns, including Etawah, Mainpuri and Kannauj enjoy a 24-hour supply. There are, hwoever, no chances of these towns losing their VIP status as far as power supply is concerned. Together these towns have a power load of around 300 MW.
During the recent night stay programme, the officers who had been dispatched to the villages were flooded with complaints about poor power supply in villages.
The feedback apparently perturbed the CM who rebuffed the power bosses and directed them to ensure that the villages got no less than 16 hours of supply. It is a different matter that providing more electricity to villages will mean more financial losses to the fund-starved UPPCL. Each unit of electricity supplied to rural areas brings a loss of around Rs 2.50 to the corporation.
