It is not just traffic snarls. The country’s IT city Bengaluru has now been hit by heavy power cuts — as long as five hours on a daily basis for the past several weeks — which may force several small and medium-scale enterprises, which are losing as much as Rs 40 crore a day, to shut shop. What’s worse is that there seems to be no signs of the situation improving in the near term.

Industry chieftains are naturally disappointed with the state of affairs. “The present power situation is due to the total failure of government policy. The government has run the power sector for the last 35 years and has only given us power cuts. It is very clear that the government cannot manage the power sector. We need a radical reform, otherwise economic growth here will be hit,” TV Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Education, told FE.

The Global Investors Meet, the government’s big-ticket investment vehicle, is to be held in Bengaluru four months from now. But the power situation is not going to show the IT city in any good light.

NR Narayana Murthy, co-founder of IT giant Infosys, feels good leadership can help to tide over the crisis. “Good planning and speedy execution with good leadership will eliminate the power problems,” he told FE in a statement.

What exactly is the cause for such frequent and long power cuts? The state’s hydel energy stations are producing barely 160-170 MW per day against its full capacity of 3,656 MW, due to the failure of the monsoon this year. Added to that, the thermal power plant at Raichur has seen frequent breakdowns on account of old and worn out machinery. Bengaluru consumes roughly 25% of the state’s power production, being home to close to 2,000 IT firms and 35,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Large IT and biotech companies are not affected as the SMEs are as many of them have their own generation plants, some running on renewable resources.

Said Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, “We have our own captive power plant that generates power for our requirement. And we are also looking at renewable energy sources.” However, she said the government should look at ways to solve the current crisis. “We have given our suggestions to the government and really it is for them to take decisions on how to solve the crisis,” Mazumdar-Shaw told FE.

According to Pai, who was also with Infosys as CFO and board member, Karnataka needs to create a daily capacity of 30,000 MW. Currently the state generates only around 7,000 MW of power, against an installed capacity of a little over 12,766 MW. The state has a power shortfall of around 2,200 MW, with the peak demand touching 9,100 MW.

“It is time the private sector is given the authority to run the power sector with a fair bidding process,” said Pai. We also need to increase the transmission lines between Maharashtra and Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh so that power can flow in from both western and eastern India.”

The state government has now invoked Section 11 of the Electricity Act, which restricts private producers from selling power outside the state. As a result, the government is getting an additional 300 MW from co-generation sugar mills, and 300 MW from Jindal Power, among others. Udupi Power Corporation, a subsidiary of Adani Power, is now supplying the entire 1,200 MW from its plant in Udupi to the state grid.

“The water level at all our reservoirs has fallen drastically this year due to failure of the monsoon. We are conserving water for the summer months to meet drinking water requirements. We want to increase generation from hydel stations at a later stage so that we can avoid problems during the exam season during summer months,” an official from the state energy department said.

Karnataka is forced to buy around 1,000 MW power from private producers every day to tide over the shortage. Additionally, it has only promises to offer. At a function in Bengaluru on Tuesday, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said the power crisis was the result of several units of existing power plants not working at full capacity. “We expect some of the dysfunctional units to resume functioning soon,” he said. The chief minister has said that some units in thermal plants at Raichur Thermal Power Station were more than two decades old and the technology needed to be upgraded. “We have to ensure these units do not go to repairs frequently,” he said, adding that Karnataka needs to look at power generation keeping in mind the demand over the next 5-10 years.

“It is time the private sector is given the authority to run the power sector with a fair bidding process” – TV Mohandas Pai

“We have given our suggestions to the government and it is for them to take decisions on how to solve the crisis” – Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

“Good planning and speedy execution with good leadership will eliminate the power problems” – NR Naryana Murthy