Chandigarh, December 23
Panic buttons were pressed in the corridors of the Haryana Power Utilities this morning when four units of 110MW each of the Panipat Thermal Plant went off, leading to, what a senior functionary described as, "a critical situation".

The power situation, which is already far from satisfactory, worsened so much that the authorities had to switch off several feeders. The first casualty was understandably the industry. The power supply to the industry was switched off "till further orders."

Informed sources say that the Panipat plant's seventh unit of 250 MW was already not functioning. Similarly, the third unit of 55 MW of the Faridabad thermal plant was also off steam.

The sources say against the demand of about 650 lakh units of electricity, the state normally has about 600 lakh units. With a steep fall in its own generation, the availability of power today was drastically reduced.

The situation, however, started improving in the afternoon.

The Managing Director of the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam, Mr P.K. Das, said all five units of the Panipat plant, which were off steam, had been synchronised by the evening. The third unit of the Faridabad plant also started generation.

He hoped that by tomorrow the power situation in the state would be better than what it was yesterday.

Meanwhile, captains of industry. including Mr Rajinder Nath, President of the Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI); its former President, Mr S.P. Gupta, and Mr Praveen Goel, a member of its executive, said the government must take immediate steps to improve the power situation in the state if it wanted new industry to come to Haryana. They said when the existing industry, particularly in the small and medium sectors, were starving of power, it was of no use to invite new industry to the state.