The average daily consumption of power has crossed 78 million units as against the average daily availability of little over 67 million units from various sources. To tide over the shortage of over 10 million units, the KEB has planned to go in for unscheduled load shedding for sometime and then resort to scheduled load shedding if the situation worsens.

KEB has authorised its subdivisions to cut power supply as and when the peak-load increases in order to avoid a systems failure. The worst hit will be those in rural areas as they do not get power supply for six hours and get single-phase supply (only for lighting) for eight hours in a day at present. The rural areas are getting three-phase supply (complete) only for 10 hours at two intervals in a day for running irrigation pumpsets. With considerable increase inthe demand for power and a wide gap between the demand and supply, further restrictions are bound to hit rural areas hard.

HT installations in the cities would also be hit hard. As of now, HT users are allowed to use power only for lighting from 6 pm to 10 pm to ensure uninterrupted power supply to domestic and other installations during the peak-hour. Load shedding - scheduled or unscheduled - would greatly inconvenience students preparing for the examination.

The Neyveli Lignite Corporation's (NTC) threat to stop power supply to Karnataka if the KEB failed to clear Rs 290 crore dues by March 15 has added to the fears of a power crisis. The KEB, which is supposed to get Rs 1,200 crore from the State Government, has appealed to it to release funds so that it can make some part of the payment to NLC. The State Government on the other hand has decided to seek the Centre's help to bail out the KEB on the grounds that the Public Sector Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited owes Rs 300 crore to KEB.

If the NLCsticks to its stand, the State will stand to lose five million units a day, resulting in a severe power crisis in the next fortnight. According to sources in the Central Power Grid Corporation, KEB had overdrawn 27 million units from the Central grid and it has been cautioned that any further overdrawing will make the grid vulnerable to disturbance and also affect the commercial accounting procedures.

Though the Karnataka Power Corporation (KPC) has formally synchronised the fifth unit of the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) in January itself, the State grid is yet to get power supply from it as, according to KPC officials, the coal firing tests were being conducted in the unit. The hope is that the unit will start commercial generation by the end of March, which means the grid is likely to get an additional four million units from the RTPS, which at present is supplying 17 million units a day.

KEB Member (Technical) D S Palekar told The Indian Express that the crisis was due to a substantialincrease in the number of installations being serviced during the last one year and also as a result of the pumpsets put to use for agricultural operations.

He maintained that it was inevitable that they resort to load shedding to overcome certain system constraints as the KEB had to maintain the minimum frequency of power supply at 48 cycles so that the system functions normally.

However, Palekar ruled out any immediate imposition of either a demand cut or an energy cut, stating that the situation does not warrant it at the moment.

Besides 17 million units of power supply from the RTPS, KEB is getting 15 million units out of its share from the Centre and it is importing three million units from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and the rest (nearly 33 million units) from the hydel stations.