Why frequent power cuts in Madhya Pradesh for the last 5 days?

BHOPAL: heat is already here and it seems so are the power cuts.

The state has seen power cuts for five days consecutively. As per reports, the power cuts are mostly in areas where the majority consumers have not paid their bills or the per unit revenue generation is less.

Officials however claim that units of few are suddenly on outage leading to the situation and it is ensured that paying consumers are not affected.

Records with TOI show that there were power cuts on February 28, there was unscheduled load shedding (power cuts) of scattered durations in the hours between 7 am to 9 am and also between 11pm and 12 am, across all the three discoms, east, central and west, on March 1, it was between 8 am to 10 am and between 1 pm to 5 pm, across all discoms, on March 2, it was in the afternoon hours and then between 4 pm to 12 in the night across all discoms, on March 3 it was in the morning hours between 7 am and 10 pm and then between 3 pm and midnight and on March 4, there were power cuts between 7 am to 12 in afternoon and post midnight on March 4. There was a shortage of 1.73 million units on February 28, 3.27 million units on March 1, 4.38 million units on March 2, 7.43 million units on March 3 and 4.32 million units on March 4. There was shortage of 564 MW when the demand peaked at 13759 MW on March 4.

“Units of some of the generators are on sudden outages. We are rationalizing the supplies, only those areas where realization is less are affected. It is ensured that the effect is minimized and paying consumers are not affected”, managing director, power management company limited, M R Raghuraj told TOI.

In his speech on budget day, MP finance minister has said that the state has now become self dependent in the energy sector. The overall capacity of state is now 28000 MW and a peak demand of 17170 MW was met on January 13, this year, the finance minister said during his budget speech on February 28 and on that very day there was shortage of around 1.73 million units forcing the discoms for unscheduled power cuts.