As the power crisis has further deepened in Jharkhand, the State government has asked the Damodar Valley Corporation (DAV) to stop load shedding in Jharkhand owing to the third wave of the Covid 19 pandemic.
The State government has said that any power outage due to the DVC may create problems before the government to tackle the health crisis in a better way. Notably, the DVC from the past couple of months has cut the power supply by 50 percent in Jharkhand affecting day-to-day life as well as trade commerce and industries.Six districts namely Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Koderma, Giridih, Bokaro, and Dhanbad fall under the command area of DVC where the DVC supplies power. These districts have been facing power outages since November 6. The DVC has said that the Jharkhand government has not paid outstanding power dues for a long time hence it has no other option but to rationalize power distribution in Jharkhand. In December last year, DVC served a notice to the Jharkhand government to pay a power bill aggregating to over Rs 2,173 crores. This was in continuation to DVC on November 5 wrote a strong letter to the general manager of JBVNL, to clear dues, otherwise, it would cut short power supplies by 300 MW. The average monthly billing of Jharkhand is Rs 160 Crore and the DVC claimed that the Jharkhand government pays Rs 100 Crore against the monthly bill.
The power condition in Jharkhand suddenly worsened on Wednesday when a unit of Tenughat Vidyut Nigam Limited (TVNL) developed a technical snag.
Jharkhand requires 1700 MW whereas only 1115 MW was available due to a problem in the TVNL unit. Ranchi and other districts of Jharkhand witnessed power outages on Wednesday and there was load shedding for four to six hours.
