City in dark for two hrs

Half of Nagpur plunged into darkness for almost two hours from 6pm to 8.15pm on Tuesday due to emergency loadshedding undertaken by

Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL).

Highly placed sources in MSEDCL said that due to scanty rain, the demand for power has increased sharply. In fact, the demand has increased from 11,000 MW on July 25 to 14,500 MW at present. On the other hand availability has not increased, forcing MSEDCL to frequently go in for emergency load-shedding.

Sources also pointed out that many residents have also started their air-coolers again, and this has led to increase in demand.

MSEDCL sources said that the only way to stop emergency loadshedding was to increase scheduled loadshedding. However, due to assembly elections in October, the state government doesn’t want to increase the scheduled power cuts. “This would provide ammunition to the opposition parties, who would make it a major issue in the election,” sources said. This is for the fourth time that the city had witnessed emergency load-shedding in the last 20 days. Citizens are wondering how MSEDCL will manage smooth power supply during the festival season.