Sajith Kumar

Sales of emergency lamps, home UPS, inverters and other power-related paraphernalia have spiked in the last two days as India’s Silicon Valley finds ways of coping with intermittent load shedding.
“I have been visiting the electronic goods shop to get an emergency light but for the last two days, I have been told the store is out of stock,” says Prakash Raj.
A sign of things to come, given that the state government has decided to limit daily power consumption to 100 million units in July and August from the present 115-200 million units.
“The situation is quite alarming for the industrial sector as a whole. The fact that these power cuts are unscheduled makes it very difficult for us to deal with it. Even though we cannot quantify the loss, we are losing 60-70 per cent of working man hours due to the power disruption,” says Ramappa, secretary general of the Bangalore Chamber of Commerce.
If citizens suffered two-three hours of frequent power cuts, they are now bracing up to face five-six dark hours, as the government has decided to impose a 25 per cent load shedding in August citing deficient rainfall and low-water level in hydel reservoirs.
“Sixty per cent of the state’s consumption is met through hydel power. This time we have had very poor monsoons, and this situation is the same in other parts of India. To cope with the demand, we are looking to import more power,” says a senior technical director at Karnataka Power Corporation.