‘Power-surplus’ Madhya Pradesh buys electricity to avoid cuts

Despite being a ‘power-surplus’ state, there were unscheduled power cuts in Madhya Pradesh in the past few days, energy minister Pradyum Singh Tomar admitted on Tuesday.

Home minister Narottam Mishra, who is the government’s spokesman, also accepted that there is power shortage in the state. “Lack of rain, which led to less water in the dams, plus technical issues in power plants and lack of coal impacted power production in the state. But it will be resolved in five days,” he said.

Now, there are no power cuts as ‘additional power’ is being purchased, said sources. There was no ‘unscheduled power cut’ on August 30 in official records, but the reports mention additional power purchase of around 1,163 MW that day.

Power min backtracks statement

What’s interesting here is that the state has power purchase agreements (PPAs) for more than 21,000 MW while demand is only around 9,000MW, yet it has to buy more power to avoid cuts. The exchequer that is already burdened with fixed charges due to surplus power is now paying for the additional purchase of power from the market, said officials.

There were unscheduled power cuts between August 27 evening and August 29. In the Vindhya region, even BJP leaders rose in protest with Maihar MLA Tripathi warning of an agitation.

Tikamgarh legislator Rakesh Giri Goswami said farmers have threatened to hold demonstrations because they are unable to water their crops.

On Monday, Tomar had said there is no power crisis and that ‘no unscheduled power cut has been noticed’. “Everything is fine,” he insisted.

Within a day, he had to backtrack. “Since August 27 evening, there was an unexpected increase in power demand for three days, hence unscheduled power cuts were used as a last resort,” the energy minister said in a statement on Tuesday.

Despite the ‘unexpected’ increase, peak demand reached only 11,000MW, which is half the amount for which MP has PPAs.