With a sharp fall in power demand following moderate to heavy rains in the state, Punjab power utility PSPCL has stopped electricity cuts, bringing relief to all consumer categories.
"Rains at this time have come as big relief as the demand for power in the state has gone down considerably," Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) Director Distribution K L Sharma said here today.
"Because of fall in demand of energy especially from the agriculture sector as well other power consuming sectors, we have stopped imposing power cuts in the state," he said.
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In a circular issued, PSPCL has relaxed power regulatory measures on industry category including Large Supply (LS), Medium Supply (MS) and Small Power (SP) till the morning of July 20.
Moderate to heavy rainfall lashed several parts of Punjab and Haryana bringing down the maximum temperature and providing relief to people from heat and sultry conditions prevailing in the region.
The much needed spell of rain has also brought cheers on the faces of paddy growers who have been complaining of not getting adequate power for irrigating their crop.
He said PSPCL is currently meeting 8500 MW of power demand from available resources.
Earlier, the demand for power in Punjab had crossed 2,350 lakh units per day during paddy season as against 2,000 lakh units in the last season because of "unprecedented" high temperature and weak monsoon, PSPCL had said earlier while justifying power cuts.
Amid claims of surplus power available this paddy growing season, PSPCL resorted to imposing load shedding of 12 hours on small, medium and large-scale industry consumers.
PSPCL had imposed peak load hours restrictions for 12 hours on the industry across Punjab, citing weak monsoon and high demand for power.
The state was facing heavy load shedding across all categories of customers ranging between 5-8 hours per day. PSPCL had also blamed short coal supplies to private thermal power plants for lesser power generation to meet increasing power requirements in the wake of "poor" monsoon.
With power situation turning bad this summer, the opposition, Congress, even cornered the SAD-BJP government in Punjab Vidhan Sabha during the ongoing Budget session and had demanded a "white paper" on the issue of power shortage.
Facing criticism on the issue of power shortage, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal stated in the Assembly on July 17 that the power situation would improve in next 15 days.
