The shortage in power generation at Vijayawada Thermal Power station and Krishnapatnam led to major power shortage in Kurnool and Anantapur districts on February 3 and February 4 leading to power cuts imposed on three-phase connections and industries asked to reduce their consumption by 25% and agriculture getting only three to four hours.
In Kurnool district out of 800 MW of daily demand, only 500 MW to 550 MW could be maintained and against a daily consumption of 13 million units only 8 million units were consumed. In Anantapur district too the reduction in consumption was above 2 million units and the load shedding was about 100 MW.
While the APSPDCL officials were tight-lipped over the whole issue, they said everything was being monitored from Vijayawada and district wise load-shedding was being resorted to. The lift irrigation scheme in Kurnool district needed 140 MW and hence the district quota was limited to 260 MW and that was being rotated among Mandals to provide single-phase power. A two-hour power cut was imposed in phases for domestic consumers in peak demand time.
Agriculture connections too suffered a major blow in Anantapur and Kurnool district with most of the mandals getting only four to five hours of supply and in some even less.
People in the know of things said that there was no scope to buy power for the grid from the open market also as State was cash-strapped and advance payment had to be made for the purchase, which had led to the current situation.
