By Kesara Abeywardena
With little rain being received in the hydro power catchment areas the duration of the daily power cut would be raised by a further one to two hours if the present situation continues for another week, Electricity Board sources said.

An official of the Board said that a five hour power cut is most likely within the coming two weeks. The CEB increased the power cut to three hours without anouncement on Sunday.

However Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake addressing a public gathering on Sunday said that whether it rains or not their would be uninterupted power supply in another two weeks.

The water levels in the main reservoirs have continued to fall within the past few weeks with little or no rain received in the catchment areas. On Monday the catchment areas recorded no rains while the storage capacity of the three main Mahaweli reservoirs Victoria, Kotmale and Randenigala recorded a dismal water level of 6.8 percent, 4.2 percent and 15.9 percent. Among the resoivoirs only Castlereigh and Mousakelle with realtively less generation capacity record 32.9 precent and 41.8 percent.

CEB sources said that the total electricity generation capacity has now fallen below half of the generation capability on a normal day.

On Monday a total of 8.14040 Gigawatt hours of Hydro Power units and 7.77710 Gigawatt hours of thermal units were generated. The reliance on thermal power generation has almost become half of the total generation capacity and the private thermal power stations have increased their capacity significantly. However CEB sources said that the buying price of electricity from these plants are far above the selling rate and the Board is finding difficulties in paying the fuel costs. The CEB at present has an outstanding overdraft of Rs. 9 billion.