Faved with what he says is an acute power crisis in Maharashtra, c chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking help to enhance generation and supply.

“...Maharashtra is in the grip of an acute power shortage which reached a peak of 6800 mw in the month of April. This has led us to resort to massive load-shedding of more than 15 hours in villages and between 5-10 hours in towns and cities,” the letter says.

The Maharashtra chief minister has said that though the state has already undertaken a massive programme of creating additional capacity of almost 5900 mw in the next five years, it requires the Centre’s intervention and assistance to “facilitate and expedite” the commissioning of these projects.

Deshmukh’s main demands are for the ministry of environment and forests to prioritise clearances for Maharashtra’s power projects, for Bharat Heavy Electricals to speed up supply of equipment, and for provision of gas for the power projects (see table).

In response to the letter, the Prime Minister’s Office promised to monitor the situation every month and the ministry of power has said that it will examine Maharashtra’s request for additional allocation of power from central stations.

Maharashtra faces a demand and supply gap of 6000 mw, which is likely to increase to 10,740 mw by 2012, if no capacity addition is undertaken. However, the state has undertaken measures for capacity addition. At present, two 250 mw units are under construction at Parli and Paras. New capacity of 1600 mw at Koradi and 800 mw at Chandrapur is also planned.

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