402 overdrawal cautions in 45 days

This is the maximum number of caution messages issued to any of the nine states that are part of the northern grid. Haryana,the second biggest culprit,was issued 265 cautions,Punjab 227,Uttarakhand 154,Jammu and Kashmir 119,Rajasthan 70,Himachal Pradesh 20,and Delhi 5. Only the Union Territory of Chandigarh did not make any overdrawal.

Overdrawals by these states continued even after the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC),on a petition from NRLDC,ordered them on July 10 not to make any overdrawal from the NEW grid when the frequency is below 49.5 hz.

Between July 10 and July 16, UP was cautioned as many as 31 times,followed by Uttarakhand 19 times,Haryana 17 times,Rajasthan and Punjab 15 times each,Delhi thrice,J and K twice and HP once. However,Himachal Pradesh,Delhi,Chandigarh could not exhaust even their share of power.

On July 30,CERC ordered for personal appearance of heads of transmission corporations of UP,Haryana,Punjab,Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir on August 14. The same night,the northern grid collapsed. The next day,the northern grid,the eastern grid and the north-eastern grid collapsed,plunging almost half of India into an unprecedented power crisis.

Sources in the UP Power Department said the state’s endemic dependence on overdrawals which,in turn,threaten the electricity grids,is the result of gross mismanagement. The state’s own generation is grossly inadequate,but the Akhilesh government has announced enhanced power supply during Ramzan,exemption from power cut to VIP districts such as Etawah,Mainpuri and Kannauj and Rampur City,besides partial exemption to nearly two dozen smaller cities of SP’s satraps.

As for the previous Mayawati government,it had made power purchases from several sources,but did not make payments. On April 30,the state had to pay more than Rs 10,000 crore to power suppliers. As a result,no one is ready to sell power to UP on credit.

Recently,Himachal State Power Corporation refused to supply power to UPPCL on credit as the latter has not cleared its outstanding dues of Rs 1,280.03 crore. UPPCL owes Rs 1,415 crore to f NTPC,Rs 441.33 crore to Power Grid Corporation,Rs 385.34 crore to NHPC,Rs 339.82 crore to Nuclear Power Corporation,Rs 114.76 crore to Reliance Power,Rs 88.72 crore to Lanco,and Rs 40.67 crore to Jai Prakash Power Ventures,besides Rs 797.70 crore for overdrawal charges.

This excludes a whopping Rs 4,017.82 crore it has to pay the state’s own UP Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited,Rs 221.20 crore to UP Hydro Power Corporation Limited,Rs 371.45 crore to THDC,Tehri and Rs 957.48 crore to other corporations from where power was purchased.

The state’s average restricted demand,with rostering,is 9,000 MW while unrestricted demand is up to 10,000 MW,sources said. The state produces nearly 4,000 MW from five state-owned generation units. The private players Anpara C project of Lanco,and Roza project of Reliance provide another 1,500 MW. The remaining comes from the state share in central projects and overdrawal. Incidentally,Reliance has stopped one of its four units while Lanco is operating much below their capacity as their dues have not been cleared by UPPCL.