Rajnath’s voters kept cool during heat wave

Amit Sharma

Lucknow, April 30: WHILE most of Uttar Pradesh is reeling under a heat wave made worse by long power cuts following plummeting generation in power plants, the residents of Haidergarh and Hardoi towns have it a little easy. After all, people of the two towns voted Chief Minister Rajnath Singh and state Power Minister Naresh Agarwal to power.

However, the power corporation hasn’t extended the same treatment to the residents of the Prime Minister’s constituency, Lucknow. The state capital has had to deal with power cuts that last between three and six hours every day and sources in the power corporation say the situation is unlikely to change in the next few days.

The grim power scenario in the state worsened following closure of two units of the Anpara Thermal power plant on Sunday, while two units of the Obra plant have not functioned for the past few days due to a shortage of coal. Corporation officials are making frantic efforts to help overcome the coal crisis because this alone can improvise things. Repairing the other plants will take a few days at least.

Today, thermal generation was limited to 1500 MW from hydro-electric plants and 400 MW from thermal plants, against a requirement of 2,500 MW. As a result, smaller districts are facing power cuts lasting 8-10 hours while towns, including the industrial hub of Noida, get no power for 3-6 hours.

Rajnath has already declared that the crisis is unlikely to abate any time soon. ‘‘Efforts are being made to normalise the situation but this may take some time,’’ he said.

Rajnath Singh’s statement and Power Minister Naresh Agarwal’s attempt to project himself as the only leader of the Bania community in the state by holding a rally in New Delhi today has irked the Opposition, which blames the two of them for the state’s problems.

‘‘While the Power Minister is pursuing his political course, the Chief Minister has restricted himself to looking after the comforts of his electorate. This is a shocking trend but none is willing to take notice,’’ alleged Congress spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh.