Faced with acute power shortage, the Tamil Nadu government today decided to impose two—hour power cuts in Chennai and four hours load shedding in the rest of the state from Monday, besides introducing power holidays for industrial units throughout the State.
From Monday, 40 per cent power cut would be imposed to all industrial and commercial consumers. Power holiday would come into force to all industries from March one, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Company (TANGEDCO) said in a statement.
Chennai and suburban areas will have loadshedding for two hours and other rural and urban areas will have four hour power cut, it said. At present, Chennai experiences one hour load shedding while other areas face two hours of power cut.
Commercial consumers would face power restriction during peak hours from 6 pm to 10pm.
The new regulation comes in the backdrop of widespread protests against the unscheduled load shedding for long duration in most of parts of the state ranging from six to eight hours.
The authorities attributed the load shedding in view of power demands which stood at 12,500 mw as against the availability of 8,500 mw, leaving a gap of 4,000 mw.
“As the present restrictions and control measures are not sufficient to cover the gap, TANGEDCO is forced to resort to unscheduled load shedding, in order to ensure grid security”, it said.
As per the new schedule, power holidays for industries would be introduced in a staggered manner on different days.