As the government has asked people to save power which is not there, the situation on the power front in Andhra Pradesh is getting worsened day by day and the people are getting ready for darker days ahead.
With the Centre not keen on giving any assurance on additional gas allocation to the state government and water levels in several reservoirs going down regularly, the stage is set for the state to witness the lowest ebb in power generation.
The present gap of 69 million units between power demand and generation in the state is bound to go up with the present generation of 202 million units set to come down further in the days ahead as against the requirement of 271 million units.
The power crisis is mainly due to the idleness of the hydel power plants with a generation capacity of 1,910 MW for several days. The inactivity of the plants is due to deficit rainfall in the catchment areas in several districts.
Despite the Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy restoring the 2 MMSCMD gas from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra for the state, eight gas based power projects in the state are still lying idle as there was no additional allocation of gas from the Centre.
Partial relief
The Simhadri thermal power station has begun supplying additional power of 335 MW to the state from today providing a partial relief from the power crisis.
The state, against a normal allocation of 1200 MW from the Simhadri plant, is getting 825 MW of power and now with the additional allocation of 335 MW, the total supply of power from the plant would be around 1160 MW.