With the shutting down of six thermal units in four thermal power plants, the power crisis has aggravated, leading to unscheduled cuts ranging between three and eight hours daily. Sources said two 210-MW and 110-MW units at the Panipat thermal power station, one 600-MW unit at Khedar, two 300-MW units at Yamunanagar and one newly commissioned 600-MW unit at Jhajjar thermal power plant were not contributing any power to the state’s kitty which had resulted in a shortage of 428 lakh units every day. The unit number 6 (210 MW) of the Panipat thermal went down early this morning while unit number 2 (110 MW) was reported to be already under maintenance. This brought down power availability from Panipat power station to 840 MW against 1040 MW on Monday. Two units of 300-MW each at the Yamunanagar thermal plant have also not been operating for the past several days. The turbine rotor of one unit has been sent to China for repair and it will take another four to six months to restart the unit, sources said. The second unit also went down due to boiler leakage. One 600-MW unit at Khedar had developed leakage problems while another unit was daily generating 500 MW on an average. The 660-MW unit at Jhajjar after its commissioning last month within a record three years, has not generated even a single unit of power due to non-availability of coal the supply of which has not yet commenced there. Raman Mohan adds from Hisar: The first unit of the Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant at Khedar village, near here, has been shut down for repairs necessitating further power cuts in the area. Official sources said the turbine and the boiler of the unit had developed snags prompting its shutdown on Monday evening. A team of engineers from a Chinese company had been summoned to rectify the faults. The second unit was,, however, producing 500 MW of power. The sources said it would take several days to rectify the defects. The plant has been beset with technical snags ever since its commissioning. Initially, there were problems in achieving the peak generation capacity. Since then the two units had to be shut down several times because of faults. Govt to spend Rs 3803 crore on power transmission: CM Dabri (Karnal): The government will spend Rs 3,803 crore in the next three years to strengthen the power transmission network, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said here on Tuesday. Addressing a public meeting after inaugurating a 132 kV substation here, he said the capacity of 102 existing substations would be augmented and 3,630-km new transmission lines erected to ensure uninterrupted power supply. It had been decided to set up five 400-kV, 24 220-kV, 22 132-kV, 23 66-kV and 104 new 33-kV substations to meet the growing load requirement while two new units of 500-MW each at Indira Gandhi Thermal Power Station, Jharli’ and two units of 660-MW each at Mahatma Gandhi Super Thermal Power Station, Jhajjar, would be commissioned during the current year adding about 2,200 MW of power daily to the state’s kitty. — TNS