UPPCL to buy power from other states

Plan is to get 500 MW from Rajasthan, 400 MW from Himachal and nearly 300 MW from J&K

Expecting a spurt in demand for power in May and June, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) has decided to purchase 1500 megawatt additional power next month. The UPPCL has decided to approach power-surplus states of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. The UPPCL officials admit that the prediction of significant rise in mercury in May and June is “worrying”.

LUCKNOW: Expecting a spurt in demand for power in May and June, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) has decided to purchase 1500 megawatt additional power next month. The UPPCL has decided to approach power-surplus states of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. The UPPCL officials admit that the prediction of significant rise in mercury in May and June is “worrying”.

More so as the demand for additional power is likely to shoot up significantly at night in these two peak summer months.

However, UPPCL MD AP Mishra said the power corporation was confident of meeting the additional demand.

By month-end, the state would start getting 500 megawatt power from Rajasthan. Another 400 megawatt is expected from Himachal Pradesh while talks are on with Jammu and Kashmir for nearly 300 megawatt power.

Besides, Mishra said the UPPCL would purchase 300 megawatt power from private companies.

Mishra said efforts were also on to ensure that the state’s own production goes up. “You will see a significant increase in power supply from the state in May. For instance we are confident of 1000 megawatt power from two units of Anpara D, 660 MW from Bara, 800 megawatt from Lalitpur. Along with this, we are hopeful of 200 megawatt from one of the other unit of Anpara.

Between April 29 and May 3, four power units would begin production through which the state is expected to be benefit by additional 575 megawatt power. Since we had started preparing for the summer demand early, we hope that we would be able to provide a relatively better summer experience to the people of the state this year,” Mishra said.

As of now the power corporation claims that rural UP is being provided 15 hours of power supply while at the tehsil level 17 hours of power supply is being given. Power corporation officials say that the district headquarters are getting 21 hours of supply while divisional levels are getting 23 hours of supply, Bundelkhand gets 21 hours and major cities a touch less than 24 hours.

“This is about 20% more than what we were able to provide last year,” a UPPCL official said.