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Load-shedding to return from Tuesday in Karnataka

Two-hour load-shedding will return from Tuesday (October 11) as the power situation in the state has worsened in Karnataka

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Two-hour load-shedding will return from Tuesday (October 11) as the power situation in the state has worsened, power minister Shobha Karandlaje told DNA on Saturday. But this time around, you can plan your day as the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company will inform you when you will have to go without power.

The reason for the dreaded load-shedding to return is that the coal supplies to Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) have taken a hit due to the Telangana problem, while power from the Central grid has still not been assured.

“Currently, the state’s peak load stands at 6,600 MW. We are facing difficulty to supply power during this hour as it is volatile. It sometimes goes up and sometimes drops. But peak load has gone up compared to last year and we need more power for the state,” she said.

“We cannot do anything else. We have made several mistakes. When the Ramagundam plant in Andhra Pradesh stopped working on September 25, we should have implemented load-shedding. We cannot make the same mistake again (of not having load-shedding),” Karandlaje said.

The energy department has planned an all-ESCOM (Electricity Supply Companies) meeting on Monday to decide on implementing load-shedding from Tuesday, and it is being considered as an inevitable solution to tide over the current power crisis.

“We will announce a schedule officially for load shedding so that the people don’t face the same problems (of unscheduled load-shedding) they faced in September. We will make it more organised and less stressful for the people,” she said.

The state has seen a major drop in the coal supply in the last few days. RTPS was getting three rakes of 3,500 tonnes each of coal daily, which has dropped to only one rake a day. This has led to a steep fall in power generation.

Meanwhile, the Bellary Thermal Power Station is also facing similar problems. The hydel power generation capacity of 51 million units (MU) a day is not enough to sustain power distribution in Karnataka.

The state was also getting close to 350 MW of power from Ramagundam and Simhadri power plants which have stopped functioning. “Since this was a central power grid, we want this to be compensated. We requested the Union minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to provide us 350 MW from other sources,” Karandlaje said.

But here’s the catch: Even if the alternate coal supply is arranged from Western Coalfields Limited and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, the railway routes for the supplies to Karnataka go through the troubled the Telangana region - the very reason for the coal supplies to have stopped. “We have asked the Union Minister to change the rail route. If there is a rail-roko by Telangana activists, it would affect coal supplies here, too,” she said.

The power minister said she has sent alternative action plans to the Centre on how the power crisis in Karnataka could be mitigated.

Even as the ESCOMs are bidding for power at high costs from northern states like Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, they are unable to get transmission of power. “The corridors are all blocked. Almost all corridors are taken by Andhra Pradesh. We want the Central Government to free the corridors for Karnataka to draw power from these lines,” Karandlaje said.

The state government has also written to the Centre seeking help to improve the situation. “But since all avenues are blocked, we have to implement load-shedding,” she said.

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