Lower than normal rainfall in months of August and September has not only taken its toll on agriculture in Rajasthan but it has also interfered with the demand-supply equilibrium of discoms.
The sudden rise in power demand created flutter especially when demand exceeded well beyond the country wide power generation.
However, Rajasthan's power distribution companies -JVVNL, JdVVNL and AVVNL worked beyond their capacities to meet the demand. So much so that, it was able to meet the unprecedented one-day record demand of 3,714 lakh units on September 4.
Discoms chairman and principal secretary energy Bhaskar A Sawant told The BuckStopper that despite the daunting challenges, discoms were able to maintain 21-22 hours supply in rural areas.
“Normally rainfall in the month of August is around 150 mm in Rajasthan. But this time, it was just 20% of the normal rains, that is 30 mm – lowest since 1937. This raised demand to an unprecedented level. Meeting the rising demand was a big task and all our engineers worked together to fulfil the task,” he said.
Low rains, high temperature put pressure
He said that rising temperature put pressure on supply side.
“June and July months were inundated. There was 9% increase in the crop area. Hence a large number of agriculture connections were given to meet the irrigation requirements,” he said.
However, in August month there was sudden lull in monsoon raising the power demand by 39% as compared to corresponding period last year.
“In August the highest one-day supply was 3,519 lakh units while the demand cross the levels of 17,000 MW. Not only Rajasthan other states were also reeling under shortage of power. Even on exchange, power was not adequately available. That created few gaps but soon we took every thing under control,” Sawant said.
He said that discoms are geared up to meet the electricity demand during Rabi season starting November. Every possible steps have been taken to maintain the supply chain.
“Anticipating the rise in demand and ensure availability of power, we have done agreements with other states for supply through power banking and have also initiated short term power purchase tenders. We will do every thing to make lives easier for our farmers,” Sawant said.
Vivek Shukla is a management graduate who has worked in corporate worked for 20 years and is now pursuing his passion — news.
