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Power outages in Maharashtra to get worse

Shiv Kumar in Bombay

Power blackouts in Maharashtra, a regular feature in the state of late, are threatening to get worse with a severe shortfall in this year's monsoon.

However, Bombay will be unaffected as it receives power from the privately run BSES Ltd and the Tata Electricity Company.

The Maharashtra State Electricity Board has started cutting back on power generation and distribution due to the low water level in the state's dams.

"Supply of electricity to different parts of the state is being discontinued for three to four hours a day in a phased manner," an MSEB official said.

Power outages will officially begin from September 20, according to MSEB chairman Vinay Bansal.

Bansal told reporters that Maharashtra presently has a power shortfall fluctuating between 800 to 1,200 megawatts. He said that Maharashtra was able to draw only 1,500 MW of the 2,356 MW allotted to it.

Bansal said a 500 MW natural gas plant was lying idle as the Central government had not allocated enough natural gas for it.

Maharashtra's efforts to rope in private power players failed with the MSEB locked in a dispute with US power major Enron.

The Dabhol Power Corporation plant set up by Enron is now lying idle with the dispute dragging on in the courts.

The $3-billion project ran into trouble when the MSEB began defaulting on payments for the power it purchased from the DPC.

MSEB says it cannot pass on DPC's high tariffs to its users. While Enron's power came for as high as Rs 8.80 per unit, MSEB was able to realise only a fraction of this from its users.

Like elsewhere in the country, power in Maharashtra is priced differently for various categories of customers. Tariffs are highest for industrial and commercial users, while rural consumers pay the least.

Indo-Asian News Service

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