Following worsening of demand-supply position in the power sector, the State Government will conduct a high level meeting on February 18 to review its strategy to deal with the crisis.
The demand is growing abnormally with every passing day. APDISCOMs are currently supplying around 240 MU as against 300 MU per day. Demand for power reached all time high of 311 MU on February 7. From April 2012 to February (upto 16th) 2013 the demand has been 82067 MU as against 74098 MU for the corresponding period last year registering an increase of 10.75 per cent.
The meeting to be held at Vidyut Soudha will be chaired by APTRANSCO CMD Hiralal Samariya while the JMDs of APTRANSCO P Ramesh and P Umapathi, CMDs of DISCOMS – V Anil Kumar, Ahmed Nadeem, Kartikeya Misra, K Vidyasagar Reddy and other top officials of the utilities would attend the meeting.
Principal Secretary (Energy) M Sahoo who has reviewed the agenda of February 18th meeting, said that, “Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy is very particular that not even a single farmer should lose his standing crop due to failure of power supply and that seven hours of supply to agrl. must be maintained at any cost without compromise.” He also directed utilities to adopt 24 hours monitoring mechanism and ensure seven hours power supply to farmers and suggested top officials of APTRANSCO/DISCOMs to monitor the feeder wise power supply position and to take prompt action to conduct substation level meetings duly involving the local public representatives, farmers and other categories of consumers.
The Principal Secretary also directed DISCOM officials to inspect the field and assess the situation on daily basis for effective monitoring. The power utilities are striving hard and making no stone unturned in taking several steps to reduce the deficits and to maintain the grid stability by purchasing an additional power of around 1200 MW per month up to May, 2013.
It may be mentioned that the State Government has directed the power utilities to fully gear up to meet the demand for power to a maximum extent, especially to the farming community during the ongoing Rabi season to protect the crops with continuous monitoring and making all the toll free call centres more effective in DISCOMs. (INN)