The Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has today called upon TS Transmission Corporation to reduce the two-day power holiday per week on the industrial consumers to one day a week.
The suggestion comes in the backdrop of drop in demand from the agriculture sector following fall in temperatures due to widespread rains and also the kharif season nearing completion.
In the midst of a demand-supply mismatch leading to huge power cuts in the new state of Telangana, this comes in as good news for the industrial power consumers who are faced with hard times due to inadequate power supply to run their units leading to production loss. The small and medium enterprises are amongst the worst hit.
The directive of the Chief Minister to the D Prabhakar Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of TS Genco and TS Transco, comes in at a time when the two States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are in a major spat over power generation at the major hydel reservoirs of Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar, with the latter accusing of violating the existing government orders.
The Government move to reduce power cuts is the first sign of demand from the farm sector coming down over the past two days due to wide spread rains caused due to cyclone resulting in drop in temperatures and also demand from the farm sector pump operations.
The demand from the farm sector operation, which is provided up to seven hours of power supply to energise the pump sets, is likely to taper off with the khariff season coming to an end, providing the flexibility to reduce power cuts.