Hyderabad: Residents have helpful farmers and the climate to thank for the uninterrupted power. Officials said the farmers were heeding the government’s advise against sowing paddy in the hot Rabi season. Paddy cultivation is down to two lakh hectares. Paddy requries a lot of water, and farmers in the dry districts use power to pump water from borewells. This drives up demand and causes a crunch especially during summer, when ACs and coolers are switched on. Farmers have switched to jowar, maize, Bengal gram, green gram, black gram, which require less water.

“We can cultivate four acres of irrigated dry crops with the water used for one acre of paddy” said agriculture commissioner Priyadarshini.

“Last year, the power cuts started on January 3,” G. Raghuma Reddy, chief of the Southern Discom said.

He said was a 12 million unit shortage on February 28 last year, against 3 million units this year. But he had other reasons for the low demand. Mr Raghuma Reddy said the weather was still pleasant as compared to last year, keeping domestic consumption low. Mr Reddy said that there was only a marginal reduction in agricultural demand.