Mumbai to experience 1-2hr loadshedding daily

Mumbai, Apr 3: Mumbai, the country's financial capital, may have to experience loadshedding spanning one to two hours daily, beginning this month.

This was revealed today by the Tata Power Company (TPC), the private Sector Power Corporation which supplies electricity to the Mumbai city and suburbs.

Talking to reporters here, Tata Power MD Prasad Menon said it was the company's endeavour to prevent loadshedding in Mumbai. ''We had closed deals of procuring about 200 MW of electricity from various companies. But, due to the ultimatum given by the government as reported in the media today, the companies hiked their rates,''he said.

''Simple measures like conservation can save upto 150 to 200 MW of electricity,'' Mr Menon said and added, ultimatum is self defeating. Instead, the need of the hour was to work together to source the required power and plan our loads accordingly.'' The power deficit in Mumbai is 400 MW out of which 200 MW is in Reliance Energy Ltd (REL) areas, 100-150 MW in BEST jurisdiction and rest in TPC areas.

''The responsibility of arranging for electricity should lie with the individual distribution companies. We had said that we will procure power on behalf of BEST and Reliance also. The solution to this problem can be found by working together,'' Mr Menon said.

BEST, which supplies power to Mumbai city, procures electricity from the TPC while Reliance also purchases power from the TPC for the suburb apart from generating it, he said.

UNI