Uttarakhand to get 800 to 900 million units of Electricity from Punjab to cope with ‘lean’ winters

Uttarakhand will receive between 802 million units and 900 million units of electricity in December to March from Punjab, to offset the gap between demand and supply in the lean winter months. In the winter months the water discharge in the rivers decreases which in turn affects production of electricity, for this reason Uttarakhand has to rely on other sources for procuring power through power banking.

In the summer months, Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) had provided around 806 million units of electricity to Punjab which, it will now return to Uttarakhand. In the last four years, Haryana was the main source of power supply for Uttarakhand in the winter months, but this year the state went into an agreement with Punjab.

Under which as part of the return banking, Punjab will give 11 per cent more electricity to Uttarakhand. During the winter months, the power generation from hydel power projects considerably reduces, settling to around 10 million units, where as the demand reaches between 37million units and 38 million units.

In such a scenario, the state utility Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited then procures power from the central pool. In the summer months UPCL had supplied 806 million units of electricity to Punjab in summers.