By Team Mangalorean

BANGALORE/MANGALORE, July 24, 2008: The power crisis which currently the state is experiencing could be an engineered shortage? This is being discussed in every corners of the seat of power Vidhana Soudha. Doubts are being raised and apprehensions are being aired about the "people behind" the power crisis that the state was undergoing.
 
Could it be that the Karnataka is being targeted as a state to demonstrate what could be life without energy, could it be that some forces want to show the politicians and people in charge of the government what energy deficient could look like. Could it be that Karnataka is a pawn in the global design of power politics?

These questions are now being aired in hush hush meetings of the politicians but nobody is able to point out the persons behind the larger ploy.

Energy Minister KS Eshwarapa along with Principal Secretary Energy K Jayaraj visited KPTCL unit at Anandarao Circle in Bangalore recently.

The state is now reeling under a severe power shortage with load shedding extending from 6-8 hours in the urban areas and 8-10 hours in rural areas. It is true the rains have failed and three out of 8 generators in the Raichur Thermal Power Plant of the National Thermal Power Corporation have stopped working. On the other hand the state is not getting its quota of diesel to run the generators. There are long queues in front of the fuel pumps to get the diesel. Some of the diesel pumps are going dry two days in a week and there are already trucks, buses and other diesel run vehicles being abandoned. On Wednesday night there were 2000 diesel vehicles stranded near Lalbagh West Gate at SRS pump throwing the traffic to chaos.
 
Similar scenes in different dimensions and sizes are happening all over the state specially Mangalore, Gulburga, Mysore, Hassan, Bellary, Chitradurga, Belgaum, Dharwad and Bidar. According to the lorry owners Federation of Karnataka A.K. Shanmugappa many truck owners have told him that it had become difficult to run the trucks and long haul was not at all possible making the transport of essential goods from one place to another much difficult.
 
Sources in the KSRTC and the BMTC have confirmed that their trips are being cut short in bid to save diesel. The drivers of the Volvo vehicles are being pressurized to increase the KMPL to 3 kilometers from 2.5 kmpl presently. These vehicles have large engines and not much is possible to conserve diesel.

According to the Bus owners Federation President Rajavarma Ballal in Mangalore, the state bus owners federation was worried at the diesel shortage in the state, many owners are finding it difficult to get diesel for their vehicles. We do not know the reason why suddenly this shortage he said.
 
Due to frequent power cuts even the mobile phone companies are being pushed into using diesel generators to power their transmitter towers. According to one of the senior officials of the BSNL the generators are big guzzlers of diesel and whenever the power failed the mobile service providers have to use generators. The diesel shortage has also hit the cellular operators the sources confirmed.
 
The opposition leader in the State Legislative Assembly Mallikarjuna Kharge fears the worst. With only 10 hours of power available for the agriculture and industries the state might find it difficult to keep up with the pace of development, food production and industry. The Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has also felt the heat. He participated in a debate in the Assembly and declared that the power situation is going to persist for some more time. He blamed the rain gods for that as the Hydel power plants in the state were not getting enough inflow. The state produces only 10 percent of its power through hydel power plants. He was mum on the non working generators at the Raichur Thermal Power plant.

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