Poor electricity supply hits normal life in Uttarakhand

 With a shortfall of about 3 million unit (mu) per day in availability of power as compared to the demand for the same, poor electricity situation continues to hit normal life in different parts of Uttarakhand.

Unscheduled load shedding coupled with local faults seems to have only added to the woes of the citizens. People living in rural and hill areas of the State are the worst-affected due to the poor power situation.
According to the figures provided by the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) whereas availability of electricity in the State is presently revolving around 27 mu i.e. about 7 mu from the indigenous sources, about 10 mu from the Central pool and rest about 10 mu from other sources, the demand for the power has constantly been around 30 mu post monsoon season.

The experts on electricity matters here are of the view that since the atmospheric temperature is coming down, the demand for the electricity would only go up during the peak hours in the winter season ahead.
However, unscheduled load shedding is only disturbing the routine course of normal life here. If sometime power cuts are imposed during early morning hours, the citizens have to face the load shedding during afternoon or some other times.

Whereas the power situation remained normal in Haldwani city in morning hours on Tuesday, the power supply remained disrupted in the afternoon from around 3 today.

Similarly, rural parts of particularly Haridwar and Udhamsinghnagar faced power cuts for over five hours on Monday. Similar electricity situation was reported from these aforesaid parts of the hill state even on Tuesday, as the UPCL figures suggest.

Besides, in a bid to maintain a balance between demand and availability of power load shedding was also imposed in smaller towns including Jaspur, Ramnagar, Kichha, Gadarpur, Bazpur, Sitarganj, Selaqui, Manglore, Bahadrabad, to name a few on Monday. According to the UPCL rostering schedule power situation also remained disrupted in these aforesaid small towns even on Tuesday. 

At the same time following uncertainty of availability of power, industrialists have expressed their concern over the present state of industrial sector in the state. The entrepreneurs belonging to the small scale sector seem to be worst affected due to the poor availability of power.

The matter of fact is that in the absence of proper power supply, it has become really difficult for us to run our industrial units with the help of  additional arrangements of energy like diesel , Rakesh Belwal, a small scale industrialist said. Thus poor power situation is not only causing  an adverse impact on the industrial growth but also disturbing the employment opportunities,  he stated.

Similarly, farmers particularly in tubewell fed terai region of the hill state are not less worried on account of poor energy situation as the sowing season is also so on post kharif season.