HYDERABAD : Cyclone Hudhud has not spared Telangana state either, albeit in a different way.
With the NTPC’s Simhadri thermal power station in Visakhapatnam district being shut down on account of the the cyclone, Telangana State, which is hardpressed for power to meet agriculture sector’s requirement, lost its share of 1,100 MW from the thermal station.
According to sources, the energy department and power utilities are trying to restore power transmission lines which have snapped so that power supply could be restored as soon as NTPC station is back to operation but till then Telangana state will have to bear the brunt as power supply situation in the State has already become very precarious.
The only saving grace is that Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) has enough water and the State has decided to run all the thermal power stations full blast so that shortfall in power generation on account of shutdown of Simhadri power station is compensated to some extent.
Telangana has a shortfall of 25 million units per day and as a result it is unable to supply power satisfactorily to either the farm sector or industrial or even domestic sector. Now that NTPC is out of action for some time, the situation is expected to become worse though hydel energy would be able to meet the requirement to some extent.