To the casual observer, power cuts in the city have been erratic and without warning, however, BESCOM officials say these are very much scheduled.
Three months ago, on February 25th 2010, BESCOM issued a notification on when there will be power cuts for domestic, commercial and industrial feeders. This was in view of the upcoming summer season.
The notification had said that there will be two hours of power cuts everyday in batches – one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. For example, power is cut off in an area between 7 and 8 am in the morning, it will again be cut between 1 and 2 pm the same day. Similarly, 8 to 9 am and 2 to 3 pm; 9 to 10 am and 3 to 4 pm; 10 to 11 am and 4 to 5 pm.
This is for domestic feeders. A feeder is part of the distribution network and is connected to a BESCOM sub-station.
This is a BESCOM notification announcing the timings of power cuts. Courtesy: BESCOM. (Click on the image to enlarge)
V A Rodrigues, Communications Officer, BESCOM, says the decision regarding when (batch timing) to cut power for a certain area is at taken at the feeder level and is not centralised. Also, rotation of batches will be once in a week, that is, on every Monday.
For all commercial feeders in Bengaluru, the two-hour power cut is between 11 am to 1 pm.
For industrial feeders, the batches are as follows: 10 am to 12 noon, 12 noon to 2 pm, 2 pm to 4 pm and 4 pm to 6 pm.
For a city which has a demand of about 1700 mega watts (MW) during peak hours (mornings and late evenings), BESCOM supplies about 1300 MW of electricity, says Rodrigues. The average demand is about 1300 MW, therefore making the shortage only during peak hours, he adds.
You can contact BESCOM’s toll-free helpline at: 1800-425-26-27
Official sources in the electricity board say that Bangalore city receives about 24.8 per cent of the total power that the state receives. Of this 40 to 43 per cent is to the North division while the remaining goes to the South division.
Rodrigues says that the above schedule is likely to change in the next 15 days when the monsoons arrive and there may be lesser load shedding. ⊕
Thanks for this very informative update.
Really informative. It’s heart warming to see Citizen Matters reporting news of use while the mainstream media like ToI and DNA reports on celebrity and political gossip, 90% of which is created by the so called journos themselves.