Kerala Govt resorts to load shedding

Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 27: The Kerala government stressed on the floor of the Assembly that it had no other option, but to resort to half-an-hour load shedding in the state because of monsoon failure and a cut in the Central allocation.

''The government is forced to impose a 30-minute load shedding as the monsoon failed in the state and because of the cut in Central allocation,'' Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem said, replying in the place of Electricity Minister A K Balan to an adjournment motion moved by the Opposition United Democratic Front.

Moreover, the recent blast in the Moozhiyar Power House had cut short the power generation, he said.

''The state needed 2,700 MW of electricity per day and it was now running low by 500 MW. Though the government had tried to make up the loss by buying electricity from other states, it was not successful. Under such a circumstance, to compensate the deficiency, load shedding was the only option,'' he added.

Giving a clean chit to the Electricity Board, Mr Kareem said resorting to load shedding was not because of the fault of the board and the Opposition's adjournment motion was only politically motivated.

Earlier, moving the adjournment motion, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan (Cong) said the present crisis was only because the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) had agreed to sell National Vidyut Prasaran Nigam LTD. The government had imposed load shedding purposefully after selling electricity, he alleged.

Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy also concurred with him.

After Mr Kareem's reply, the Speaker refused permission for the adjournment motion.

UNI