DHNS

Banglaore, Feb 24: The State government will buy 850 MW of power for two months from March 1 to mitigate the power shortage in the State, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa announced in Bangalore on Tuesday. 

Addressing a press conference, Yeddyurappa said the gap between the demand and supply of power exceeded nine million units per day as on Tuesday.

While the present demand in the State was 134 million units per day, the supply was 125 mu, he pointed out.

The State plans to buy 200 MW from Jindal, 300 MW from National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), 250 MW from Power Trading Corporation (PTC) and 100 MW from NTPC Visvesvaraya Vidyut Nigam Ltd (VVNL) Bank, he said. In energy terms, purchasing 850 MW power would translate to 17 mu per day. Financially, the additional purchase of power will cost the exchequer Rs 800 crore.

The Chief Minister said he would direct Escom officials to ensure that they stick to the loadshedding schedule as announced. Escoms have also been directed to ensure that power supply is not interrupted during evening or night to avoid inconveniencing students studying for examinations.

Yeddyurappa said as promised, the State will achieve self-sufficiency in power with the addition of 5,000 MW power capacity to the state grid by the next three years.

Drinking water supply

Meanwhile, Minister for Urban Development Suresh Kumar has said that power disruption would be a major hurdle in tackling drinking water problem in summer and has demanded the Government to provide an express feeder line to supply power exclusively for supplying drinking water.

The minister said that the city corporations in the State were taking precautionary measures to ensure proper water supply during summer. Control rooms would be set up to monitor water supply and special committees would be constituted to address any failure in the system. “The major problem we are facing is  non-availability of power to pump water,” he said.