Hisar, Jul 4 - In an "exceptional" move to ease power crisis, Haryana government has overdrawn power from the northern grid at a very high rate of up to Rs 17 per unit, which is much higher than the average sale tariff of Rs 4 per unit.

"Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has been making all-out efforts to give maximum power supply to its consumers even by overdrawing from the grid at very high rate of up to Rs. 17 per unit," said an official spokesman of DHBVN here.

About 150 lakh units of power are being overdrawn by the state power utilities daily at the high rate and suffering a huge loss for giving maximum possible comfort to the people, he said.

To meet the rising demand of the farm and domestic sector, DHBVN has curtailed power supply to industrial sector from 18 hours a day to merely eight hours a day to divert more power to domestic and non-domestic sector, he said.

Demand for electricity in Haryana has increased to about 1600 lakh units per day against average demand of about 1150 lakh units a day, he said.

The problem of power shortage has also compunded as West Bengal refused to supply 200 MW of power to Haryana under barter arrangement.

"West Bengal has refused to give us power as it was also facing high demand for power," a senior official of Haryana Power department said.

Haryana had arranged 800 MW power through various state utilities.

About 1200 MW of power is not being generated because of temporary closure of two units of Yamuna Nagar and one unit of Hisar plant.

Because of severe power shortage, people at several places in the state are holding protest rallies and disrupting traffic.

Meanwhile, Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) said it is making every possible effort to meet the increased demand for power to the extent possible.

A spokesman of HPGCL said today that the shortage in supply of electricity was mainly on account of the unprecedented increase in demand which had shot up to 1,600 LU per day due to delayed monsoon, poor coal quality and quantity and not because of the Chinese equipment used in thermal plants as alleged in a section of the media.

"It is not appropriate to blame Chinese units for the power shortage in the state. As per data available, Chinese power plants of about 20,000 MW capacity are operational in India," the spokesman said.

He said the technical problems in the units of Yamunanagar, and Unit-1 of Khedar plant, due to which these were under shut-down, could occur in any coal-based thermal plant.

Most of the thermal power plants operating in the country have been subjected to the problem of vibration in turbine bearings and misalignment of rotors etc.

The work of Yamunanagar, on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis had been awarded to Reliance Energy Ltd (REL) through international competitive bidding.

The 3x500 MW Indira Gandhi Thermal Power Project (IGSTPP), which has been set up at Jhajjar as a joint venture project of Haryana and NTPC, has thermal units supplied by BHEL.

Since commissioning, these units are also facing similar problems like vibration in bearings, damage of rotor blades, frequent boiler tube leakages etc. PTI