Telangana stir leaves state dark

BANGALORE: The ripple effect of on-going protests in Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh has begun to show in Karnataka. Due to the Telangana strike, which brought rail traffic to a halt, the supply of coal to the state’s thermal power plants has been severely hit, forcing authorities there to cut down generation besides resorting to load shedding. Three of the eight units of Raichur Thermal Power Station have already been shut down  due to the shortage of coal, and the situation could worsen if protests do not end soon, Energy Minister Shobha Karandlaje told reporters on Monday.“We have stocks of about 1.8 lakh tonnes of coal, which could last another 12 days at  the most. We need 15,000 tonnes of coal every day to run our all power plants,” she added.Karnataka gets coal from Singareni Collieries in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh and also from Nagpur. On a normal day, the state gets three rakes of coal, but now it has come down to one rake, the Minister added. Foreseeing the problem, the Energy Department has already embarked on unscheduled load shedding. “Load shedding is inevitable if the situation continues like this. However, we are yet to decide on this,” Karandlaje said.Giving an overall picture of state’s energy scenario, Karandlaje said the state was facing a deficit of 1,500 MW of power every day. “The Centre is the culprit as it never honoured its commitment to supply 1,564 MW of power to the state from the Central grid. We have been getting 1,200 -1,300 MW. Now that has also come down to 900 MW,” she said.