Maharashtra's power crisis has worsened in the last few days due to several reasons.

While the Northern states are overdrawing power in violation of grid discipline, one of the units of Dabhol plant has stopped operating and Tata Power has shut one 500 Mw plant for annual overhaul.

The underutilisation of capacity of NTPC's Kawas plant due to non availability of gas has added to the peak power shortage by 500 Mw.

Energy Minister Dileep Walse Patil told reporters here today that Northern states are overdrawing nearly 700 to 800 Mw power from the national grid and states in the Western Grid Like Maharashtra, Goa, Gujrat, Madhya Pradesh are getting only around 250 to 300 Mw against their allocated share is 541 Mw.

This is resulting in unscheduled power cuts, especially in rural Maharashtra which is already facing load shedding of around 12 hours. The state has petitioned the Central Electrical Regulatory Commission (CERC) asking them to issue directives to states which are not maintaining grid discipline.

However ruling out the possibility of further increase in the load shedding, Wasle-Patil said, by the first week of June, the state will have an additional 2280 Mw power in a phased manner giving it some relief.

In the first week of February, the state government expect the Kawas plant to start functioning and give the state's share of 230 Mw. Mahagenco's Parali plant will also get synchronised, generating 25 Mw by March-end. When the plant start functioning at its full steam, the share will go up by 250 Mw.

In March another 500 Mw power is expected as TPC's 500 Mw unit, which is in outage, is expected to start functioning. Another generation station of Mahagenco at Paras will also get synchronised and get 25 Mw.

In April, one of the units of the Dabhol plant, which was generating 350 Mw is expected to start functioning once again. And the Paras plant will produce entire 250 Mw power.

Besides this, in first week of June Dabhol's 700 Mw second phase will become operational as gas has been made available.