No respite from power crisis in Seemandhra, cyclone threat adds to woes

Seemandhra got no respite from power blackouts for the fourth day today while talks with striking government employees failed and a cyclone threat added to the worries of the Andhra Pradesh government which faced calls for clamping ESMA to restore normalcy.

As the deadlock in talks including with employees of the power sector in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions showed little sign of an early settlement, the Centre moved ahead in the process to carve out a separate Telangana state deciding to hold the first meeting of the GoM set up to look into the bifurcation of AP on Friday. The GoM was announced by the Union Cabinet on October 3.

Several parts of Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema continued to reel under power crisis as the electricity employees continued their strike in protest against the proposed division of AP.

Congress said ESMA should be invoked by the party-ruled government in AP to bring normalcy in Seemandhra region even as it asserted that the decision on Telangana is irreversible but nothing can be said about any timeframe.

The power generation remained crippled at the major power stations including in Vijayawada and Rayalaseema.

Prolonged power cuts continued in the Seemandhra region and even cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada were no exception as the indefinite strike of the electricity employees entered the fourth day today.

Union Government is planning to rope in NTPC and Power Grid Corporation to provide electricity to help AP tide over the power outages which has disrupted essential services and movement of trains.

"We are doing something. NTPC and PowerGrid will provide electricity to Andhra Pradesh," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in Delhi.

Talks between the state government and striking AP Non-Gazetted Officers Association(APNGOs) to end the ongoing indefinite strike by government employees in Seemandhra collapsed as the latter vowed to continue its agitation.

The association stuck to its stand even as Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy sought to assure it that he would not let the state be divided as long as he remained the CM.

Reddy held talks for over three hours with the APNGOs association leaders at the state Secretariat in Hyderabad to end the impasse, caused due to the indefinite strike launched on August 12.

The chief minister requested the employees to bear in mind the cyclone threat to the coastal region and withdraw the strike to meet any emergency.

According to the Met forecast, the depression that lay centred over north Andamans was expected to turn into a very severe cyclonic storm and cross north Andhra and Odisha coast between Kalingapatnam and Paradeep by the night of October 12 with a maximum sustained wind speed of 175-185 kmph.