Bengaluru, Sep 1 (DHNS): Faced with a severe shortage of power, the State Cabinet on Monday gave its nod for the Energy Department to effect a two-hour load shedding in the State capital.

The situation in other cities and towns is likely to be much worse in coming days. The Cabinet has authorised the Department to take up scheduled load shedding in those places based on the availability of power.

The Electricity Supply Companies (ESCOMs), including Bescom, will soon draw up the schedule for load shedding, Law Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters after the Cabinet meeting. The minister said the State is currently facing about 3,000 mega watt (MW) of power shortage as against the total requirement of 8,000 MW.

The severe shortage is mainly due to failure of south-west monsoon rainfall and outages in Udupi Power Corporation Ltd and Ballari Thermal Power Station in recent days. Power generation at major hydel power generating stations of Linganamakki, Mani and Supa has come down drastically due to decline in water level. The State government has already declared 135 taluks as drought-hit.

The Cabinet has also approved a proposal by the Energy Department to purchase about 750 MW of power from open market at Rs 5.08 per unit in order to cope with the situation. The government has authorised the ESCOMs to enter into power purchase agreements with private power producers till May 2016. The total estimated cost of power purchase is a whopping Rs 3,078 crore, Jayachandra said.

Sources in the Energy Department said that the government has not been able to get additional power from the Central grid in the absence of proper transmission corridor and transmission lines within the State. Union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal, during his recent visit to Bengaluru, had said that the Centre is ready to give more power to the State.