Yamunanagar power blues: Govt to snap supply to industries for 8 hours

AMBALA: As Haryana faces power shortage amid soaring mercury levels, the government has issued a schedule of tentative power cuts in state hitting the industrial town of Yamunanagar badly.

The government has decided to snap power supply for straight eight hours to industries, from 8pm to 4am, from Thursday night till further orders without any exemption to continuous process industries. As per the orders, the supply will also be hampered for 6.5 hours in urban and four hours in rural areas for domestic use in state, with indifferent hours kept aside real-time scheduling. YamunanagarJagadhri twin towns have two main traditional markets of metal utensils and plywood clusters that are spread across concentrated locations in district.

Ancillary industries of auto spare parts, heavy machinery for sugarmills and scores of smaller units in industrial areas and estate are operating here. Industrialists

expressed displeasure over the decision owing to heatwaves and rising fuel prices in country.

Jugal Kishore, president of the Haryana Plywood Industries’ Association, said, “Other than scheduled cut for eight hours, there is an interrupted supply for just 12 hours a day. This means less production and delay in supply to customers. For most of the industries, manufacturing goes on overnight. What will the labourers do?”

Shivam Saluja, secretary of the Yamunanagar & Jagadhri Chamber of Commerce and Industries said shortage of electricity will affect trade in many ways and in such cases, manufacturers have to resort to diesel-based generator supply to run machines which is getting costlier.

Rajender Singh, superintendent engineer, UHBVN, Yamunanagar, said, “Currently, the electricity demand is of 67 lakh units per day, while the supply is between 50-52 lakh units per day, due to this power cuts have to be made. As the supply improves, the situation is expected to improve.”