Power crisis continues
Solan, June 19
Investors in the state’s industrial hub of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) and Parwanoo continued to face power crisis with the state electricity board imposing daylong power cut for the second day today.

Peeved at the non-availability of power in the peak summer season residents of Nalagarh gheraoed the local office of the state electricity board after facing power cuts in their residential areas late last night. The irate residents gathered around the Nalagarh office of the board around 11 pm and shouted slogans against the department till 12:30 am. They expressed resentment against imposition of power cuts in the residential areas though the board had assured them of uninterrupted power supply.

Officials of the state load dispatch centre (SLDC), however, opined that they were hopeful that the situation would improve by today evening. The SLDC was continuously monitoring the situation and officials said as soon as signs of improvement were visible they would resume normal power supply to the industrial belts. The board had decided to impose power cuts here as the power consumption is maximum here and in case they had to divert power supply from any other area it would have affected a larger population, observed officials. Barely 40 per cent supply was available and this too had declined further.

Normally, Himachal supplies almost 300 MW power to Haryana, Punjab and Delhi during these months. Officials stressed that there was no power shortage, but owing to this extraordinary situation they were compelled to provide power to the central grid leading to shortage in the total supply.

The investors, especially those running continuous process industries, including pharmaceuticals, steel furnaces, food-based, textiles, etc, faced the maximum brunt as their entire processes were rendered redundant with the abrupt unplanned power cuts.

Expressing concern over this situation, general secretary of the Parwanoo Industries Association RK Bansal said, “The situation has gone from bad to worse in the last fortnight as unscheduled power cuts ranging from two to three hours are imposed daily. Since there was no prior information about even the daylong power cuts there was little we could do to make arrangements to deal with the situation.”

NURPUR: The electricity consumers in lower Kangra district on Friday experienced unannounced power cut enforced by the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB).

According to information, the HPSEB has started daily power cut from today due to sudden fall in generation of electricity in hydropower projects. The industrial consumers will daily experience power cut from 7 am to 5 pm whereas only one hour cut has been scheduled for other power consumers.

Power controller of the HPSEB RP Dhiman said due to increase in gap between demand and supply of the electricity the board had enforced this cut from today. He revealed that there was daily demand of 180 lakh units against the supply of 130 lakh units.