Chandigarh, July 7
Industry in Punjab and Haryana came to a grinding halt and normal life was thrown out of gear, after two units of the Nathpa-Jakhri project in Himachal Pradesh were shut down this morning following excessive silt deposits.

With Punjab facing a shortfall of 340 MW and Haryana 240 MW, because of the closure of these two units, strict remedial measures to deal with the power crisis were imposed in the two states.

Several power purchase agreements signed by the two states with other state electricity boards before the onset of summers, too, could not be honoured. This has led to a total shortfall of 382 lakh units (LUs) in Punjab, and 107 LUs in Haryana.

In order to ensure a regular eight-hour supply to the agriculture sector and to maintain the four to six hour cuts on urban domestic consumers, Punjab today switched off power to all induction furnaces, increased the peak load restriction on industry from three to nine hours and decided to cut supply to industrial feeders for four hours.

Mr Jyotinder Singh, Chief Engineer, System Operations, Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB), informed TNS that because of the severe power crisis in the state for the past few days, they had imposed two compulsory weekly offs on industry. "Because of delay in the monsoon in the North, and because all states are drawing their full share of power from the Northern Grid, so there can be no overdrawals. The demand for power in the state has reached an all-time high of 1712 LUs. The remedial measures have been introduced till the time the power generation at Nathpa Jakhri improves," he said.

Mr Vishnu Goel, General Secretary, Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, rued that the long power cuts had severely impacted industrial production. "The industrial production has gone down by more than 50 per cent. The revenue loss is in the shape of labour, who are rendered idle," he said.

The worst affected are the export-oriented units , which are unable to finish their export orders in time and send the shipments. Says Mr Gaurav Sud, who runs an export-oriented tannery in Jalandhar, “We have no option but to use captive power generation, which costs almost three times per unit as compared to the power supplied by the electricity board. This is the peak season for export and the government should ensure that the industry gets adequate power”.