VIJAYAWADA: After power outages across the State for the last two days, the situation has started improving as technical issues have been rectified in three power plants. Further, the energy department officials are making efforts to procure more power to meet the demand.
On Thursday and Friday, several parts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and Godavari districts witnessed power interruptions. In several rural areas, power was not there for more than six hours at a stretch while at some other places there was intermittent disruption of power.
Barring urban areas, rural areas in Prakasam, Nellore, Rayalaseema districts and parts of Krishna and Guntur also witnessed power disruptions. On Saturday, the situation improved at several places, but in a few rural pockets, power outages continued. When contacted, senior officials Discoms and Transco maintained that they were taking remedial measures and that normalcy will be restored by Sunday.
As per the feeder-wise live interruption reports of APSPDCL and APEPDCL, some of the feeders continued to experience power outages for several hours. Reasons cited were emergency load relief at some places, line maintenance at some other places, and failure in incoming supply.
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Genco officials confirmed that technical issues that cropped up in Krishnapatnam and VTPS, affecting the power production, have been rectified and all the units are functional now. When the reports of coal shortage were pointed out, officials said it was a pan India problem and not confined to AP. They hoped coal production and supply would improve, helping the States tidying up power production.
According to sources, efforts are being made to procure power in spite of financial difficulties. Only 40 per cent of the power requirement of the state is met from the APGENCO plants and the remaining is procured through various other sources and purchases from power exchanges.
On the other hand, Minister for Energy Balineni Srinivas Reddy lashed out at the Opposition for making an issue out of a couple of days of a power outage, forgetting that there were no power cuts in the State for the past two years. He blamed the TDP for the financial problems of the State Discoms and said the dues to NTPC is an inherited problem from the previous regime.
“The issues will be resolved in a day or two to ensure there are no power interruptions anywhere. Let me remind you all that even during the Covid pandemic, power to domestic and other sectors was provided without any interruptions. In future also, we will ensure it is done and an action plan to that effect has been made,” the minister said.
