With the growing gap between demand and supply due to summer and requirement for pumps to support farm operations, efforts are under way to streamline power supply to different consumer segments, including industrial and domestic.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, today directed seven hour supply to the farmers and no cuts for domestic sector consumers in the State.

This follows a review meting of the power sector at the Secretariat today wherein a detailed discussion was held with regard to ensuring seven hours of power supply to the farm sector during the rabi season farm operations. This decision was taken to protect the standing rabi season crop.

According to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office, the Chief Minister also called upon APTransco to update feeder-wise information on agriculture supply on the Web site regularly.

The distribution companies (Discoms) are currently supplying around 253 million units (MUs) a day and meeting the peak demand of 11,384 MW. The average energy demand met during March 2011 was 255.5 MUs as against 231 MUs during the same period last year, reflecting an increase of about 10.5 per cent. The peak demand met during this March was 11,829 MW as against 10,880 MW last year same month.

Streamline supply

Mr Reddy also called upon the Chairman and Managing Directors of Discoms to hold local committee meetings along with MLAs to streamline supply of power.

The Government has decided to make efforts to procure additional gas supply of 2 mmscmd. This will be by swapping with NTPC. Since this involves concurrence of the Central Government, Ministries of Power and Petroleum and Natural Gas, it is likely to take some time.

To meet the growing requirement, the Government has directed APGenco to add more hydel power from Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Sileru complex. Meanwhile, the Rayalaseema Unit-5 of 210 MW is back in service after rectification.

However, industrial consumers have been raising concerns of growing power cuts, which could possibly disrupt their production schedules. From April 1, new tariff regime has come into effect, with marginal rate hike for domestic consumers using more than 300 units a month.

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