With the reduction, the official power-cut hours will now be 35 hours a week, which is a whooping 19 hours down from the last load-shedding schedule that was in place till four days ago. [break]
"The power-cut will now be 35 hours a week and we hope to reduce it further," Sher Singh Bhat, director at the Systems Operation Department of NEA, told myrepublica.com.
Although the NEA was limiting power-cut to five hours for the past four days, it formally announced the reduction only on Monday. NEA was supplying excess power to the Valley for the last four days.
"We have been distributing excess power supply for the past three to four days, but now we have regularized the schedule to five hours a day," Bhat added.
The reduction has come as a result of monsoon showers with rising water levels in the rivers. Bhat also informed NEA would be in a "comfortable position" to further cut the load-shedding hours once repair work at Kulekhani I and Kulekhani II is completed. He said the repair will complete within eight days.
Last year, load-shedding had already come down to four hours a day by this time last year.
However, the consumers will have to face a minimum of three hours a day power-cut during this monsoon season as well.
"Complete relief from load-shedding will not be possible this monsoon too. We will have to impose power cut for at least three to four hours a day," Bhat said.
akanshya@myrepublica.com
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