The Hindu Business Line : Poor monsoon: KSEB to hold special meeting

The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), grappling with the crisis caused by deficient monsoon rains, is holding a special meeting of the full board on Wednesday to take stock of the situation.

According to top KSEB officials, the board will be forced to resort to load-shedding or even power cut soon if rainfall continues to be sparse. The hydro-electric reservoirs have dipped alarmingly in the wake of the poor rains though the monsoon hit the State on May 31.

Officials said that the power situation was bad in entire south India and this would come in the way of the State drawing more energy from neighbouring States till the crisis blows over.

Because of the shortage in the region as a whole for various reasons, there had been days in the last couple of weeks when the State could not draw even 40 per cent of its allocation from the Central grid, they added.

The daily power consumption in the State is more than 40 million units and with the water levels at the reservoirs depleting fast, KSEB had been regulating the hydel generation to around 12 million units a day till a week ago and drawing as much thermal power as possible from generating stations within the State and outside.

However, the pressure on the availability of thermal power from outside the State forced the board to restore the hydel generation to the normal level hoping that the monsoon would intensify any day, the officials said.

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