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• Summer is on its way but people in the city are already feeling the heat. With electricity demand touching 11,500 MW and generation remaining at 7,500 MW, the state has again imposed day-long power cuts on rotation in an increasing number of localities.The 9am-to-5 pm outages are officially supposed to be for maintenance work, but officials admit they have no option but to do a balancing act with the power available. The districts have been facing over six hours of power cuts daily. The power cuts have hit industries and the agriculture sector the hardest, sparking off massive protests across the state.
• Demand is rising by the day but Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, which owes Rs 10,000 crore to electricity suppliers, is in no position to purchase power. With power generation in the state unlikely to pick up for a few more months, things are likely to get much worse before they get any better.In Madurai and surrounding areas, the residents are in a fix as public exams are round the corner. With arrival of summer, unscheduled power cuts are bound to increase. "From 6 am to 9 pm, we face power cuts at regular intervals that last for at least two hours," said Elizabeth Rani, a mother of two school-going children from Sadasiva Nagar near Anna Nagar. Only two hours of power cuts are scheduled.
• In rural Madurai, the situation is even worse as unscheduled power cuts continue for several hours into the night. "We don't know how our children are going to prepare for the exams. The government should take some measures to help the children study," said Manimekalai, a resident of Nagamalai Pudukottai on the outskirts of Madurai.Coimbatore and surrounding areas face a similar situation. Nearly 150 industrial workers were arrested on Thursday, when they tried to picket two places on the busy Avanashi Road to mark their protest against power cuts, ranging from five to eight hours. The city has over 40,000 micro, small, medium and large engineering industries, foundries and textile mills, which are suffering production losses up to Rs 200 crore a day. "We are not able to do business as there is no power. Added to this, they are asking for a tariff hike too," said an industry association representative.
• TNEB officials state that they are helpless and cashless. "The demand has gone up drastically, but there has not been any capacity addition. We are not able to buy power as it is being sold at high prices and we do not have money to buy it too," said a source. The private power producers have reduced supply as the TNEB owes them over Rs 10,000 crore."Many of our generation projects were delayed. We were supposed to get 1,000 MW from Vallur and 600 MW from North Chennai by November last year, but it will happen by June this year. We are not sure how we are going to manager the summer demand," said the official.

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