Power Cut

Industry given 2-day power holiday

The state government has given one more jolt to industry by asking the sector to take holidays twice a week and also to stop production between 6 pm and 10.30 pm every day. This would force most industrial units to suspend one shift of production.

With the steep increase in electricity demand, power distribution companies (discoms) have asked industry to take their regular ‘weekly holiday’ apart from the one-day power holiday announced by the government.

The industrial sector consumes about 35 per cent of power in the state and discoms hope to save electricity by imposing more curbs.

These restrictions would cause much difficulty to industrial units that need to be run continuously. The ferro alloys industry needs power round-the-clock, but the discoms have asked them to run at 70 per cent plant load factor.

“Power shortage has intensified with the combined demand of summer and Rabi season,” said a senior APTransco official. “The state government has only permitted us to buy 120 MW per day when gap between demand and supply is more than 1,200 MW.”

All industries using above 30 horsepower capacity have been brought under power holiday and even agriculture power supply has been divided into three phases.

Power holiday for industries in and around Hyderabad will be decided after consulting industrial estate associations. Indus-tries in Visakhapatnam will have power holiday on Thursday, Srikakulam on Monday, Vizianagaram on Tuesday, Visakha rural on Wednesday, Rajahmundry on Friday and Eluru circle on Saturday.

The power cut in rural areas has been increased to eight hours from six hours and in district headquarters to two hours from one hour.

All towns will have load shedding for two to four hours while Hyderabad city will continue to have one-hour official power cut.