Power crisis may force closure of 25 percent small businesses

Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the industrialised states in the country, is facing one of the worst crises, and resorting to an average load-shedding of 10-12 hours a day.

Uttar Pradesh, which has a power requirement of over 8,282 million units, has availability of little over 7,358 million units (MU), with deficit ranging over 11.2 percent.

The situation is no better in Andhra Pradesh where the power deficit is approximately 12.1 percent. The availability in the state is only 7,976 MU against the requirement of 9,070 MU.

The Southern part of the country is likely to suffer energy shortage to the extent of 2,111 MU particularly in Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Jammu & Kashmir suffered a power shortage of 20.3 percent in April and it is likely to go up to 25 percent in the coming months.

Besides low production capacity, Assocham said, power theft, leakages and transmission and commercial losses were among the main reasons the crisis in these states.