Power menace in western Orissa continues

Despite the direction of the state government, regular power-cut in western Orissa over the past few days has irked the local people who are planning to agitate against the attitude of the power supply company WESCO. The situation became worst when the entire western part of the state was black-out for more than 4 hours on Monday. While WESCO officials blamed less power-generation in Burla power house which led to such a situation, sources revealed power generation in Burla has no direct link with supply of WESCO as distribution of power is regulated by GRIDCO.

Sources said, power generation of Burla power house of Hirakud hydro project has been reduced over the past few days possibly in apprehension of shortage of dam water in summer. Though water level of the reservoir has in a satisfactory point, still grinding of turbine halts most of the day time on the direction of State load dispense centre of Gridco.

“We have sufficient water in the reservoir but I do not know why power generation was stopped in the power house. We have absolutely no problem from our side.” executive engineer of Hirakud Dam project RK Panda said. According to him there is a working table that has been prepared jointly to water supply to the power house from the dam project as per requirement and demand of the power generation.

“We are forced to off the power supply as we do not get sufficient power when generation in Burla power house is closed down. Though Grid is regulating the power supply but it becomes difficult for us to get supply from thermal in time. We do not know what would be the situation in summer”, Executive engineer WESCO SK Darji said.

Sources said, while Hirakud reservoir is under the Hirakud dam project, the powerhouse is under Orissa hydropower corporation (OHPC) and water from the reservoir is discharged to the power house as per the requirement and need of the generation. The power house located at Burla has a maximum generation capacity of 275.5 MW per day. But to the utter surprise, on Monday the power house generated only 16 MW which was reduced to 15 MW on Tuesday. The power house officials revealed such happens because of the direction of the load dispense centre (LDC) of Gridco. While 69 MW was generated on Sunday (21^st), it was about 51 MW on Saturday (20^th)

“We do not know the reason of the less power generation in our power house but we generate as per the direction of the LDC as it regulates the power production in the state”, an official of the power house told.

But local blamed the government alleging it purposefully being done to reduce power generation in Burla power house as there is apprehension of shortage of water level reservoir during summer which might affect water supply to industrial houses. Since farmers of the region are up in arms against sharing of dam water with industries, government wants to please both farmers and industrial houses by keeping sufficient water in the reservoir. But ultimately people of the region will have to suffer.

“I know government does not want to disturb the on going water supply to the industrials houses, but at the same time government is also aware about demand of the agitated farmers of the region. So to please both side governments is purposefully reducing power generation to keep the water stored in the reservoir”, social activist Karunakar Supakar said. On the other hand several citizen groups of both Balangir and Sambalpur have decided to agitate in case the situation remains unchanged in future.