Indian Express
Power deficit is shrinking
KARTIKAY MEHROTRA
New Delhi:

Amid outcries over power cuts, blackouts and shortfalls in some states and cities, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is reporting a decrease in India’s power deficit, so far this calendar year.
Although the demand for power has bumped up by 3.5 per cent compared with this time last year, power generators across India have improved on the nation’s capacity by 6.7 per cent. The main problems in keeping up with the demand for power lie in the south where most state power systems have failed to reduce their shortfalls.
The demand for generated power has reached more than 333,507 millions of units (mu) this year — an 11,000 mu increase from this time last year. The country’s power supply has not only grown in proportion to the bump in demand, but public and private power generators have managed to bolster supply by nearly 17,000 mu, swelling the available capacity to 298,715 mu through May this year, according to the CEA’s monthly review executive summaries.
“The deficit from last year to this year has gone down,” said a high-ranking official with the CEA.
If recent precedent is any indication, India will easily pass last year’s records for power supply and demand, when generators produced 689,021 mu, falling 11 per cent shy of the demand for electricity. That shortfall was the highest energy deficit in India during the 9th plan, a number which has grown steadily since it peaked at 8.8 per cent in 2003-2004 before falling to 7.1 per cent the following year.
... contd. But with an aggressive plan in place for increasing supply exponentially between now and 2012, the trend of falling deeper into deficit darkness will likely halt as the shortfall has already been curbed by 5 per cent compared with this time last year. By the end of May 2008, the country’s shortfall had floated below 12.6 per cent. One year later, India’s black hole sits just above 7.5 per cent. In the meantime, the government is sticking to its plan of adding 5,600 mega watt of power by August and 78,000 MW by 2012.
While the numbers indicate that electrical conditions are improving in India as a whole, the southern region on the CEA map has been unable to keep up with the demand. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu tend to be more power-deficit than other states; the south is the only part of the country not growing in its power capacity. The CEA data also shows that cities in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have seen little change in their power capacity, and thus continue to face extended hours of scheduled outages.
The root of the problem in these regions is political neglect and an inability of the states to practise the Centre’s open access policies implemented in 2003, says S L Rao, the first head of Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.
“All of these things have happened because the state has been unwilling to tell people that power is a business that costs [Rs] 5 crore per mega watt, sometimes more,” Rao told The Indian Express. “Every state government has interfered to stop open access. Open access was going to ensure that the supply follows the demand. The state governments have stopped that.”