Haryana reels under power crunch as 6 units go down
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, May 31
With six thermal units in the state out of operation, the state is reeling under a severe power shortage which has not only affected routine life but also hit the state industry hard.

Both units at the 600-MW Yamunanagar thermal plant have shut down after the failure of turbine blades. The rotor of turbine of Unit 1 is under repair at the works of Siemens in Baroda and it can be expected only in November after 14 months of outage.

The turbine blades of the second unit were also found damaged when it tripped on March 31 and this unit cannot be expected to start generating power before June-end, highly placed sources in Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) said.

According to these sources, the turbine blades of the 600-MW thermal unit 1 at Khedar had also been found damaged and HPGCL engineers had observed that even the foundation of Unit 1 was in a twisted condition. This unit was commissioned in August, 2010, and was to undergo a performance guarantee test.

Both units of the supercritical 1320-MW plant at Jhajjar are not producing any power. One unit is under shutdown for general maintenance since May 11 while other is down due to coal shortage. Unit 4 at the Panipat thermal plant is down due to boiler leakage.

Due to the prevailing circumstances, the state is facing a power shortage of over 257 lakh units daily, while the supply in state is restricted to 1,035 lakh units.

People are facing a minimum of eight-hour cuts in cities and the villages get power for only a few hours daily.

According to sources, the power cuts in the state are set to increase from present minimum eight hours in the upcoming for paddy season which commences on June 10. The power demand is expected to rise by another 300 lakh units daily.

As of now, the state has been overdrawing more than 110 lakh units daily on frequency-based rates.