CHENNAI: Prepare for additional power cuts in the city. The one-hour daily power cut in the city will be extended by another hour as part of a plan to reduce outages in districts from eight hours to five hours every day.At a high-level meeting chaired by chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday to review the power scenario in the state, TNEB officials explained that severe power shortage left the utility with no option but to increase scheduled power cuts in Chennai.The board will soon officially announce the power outage increase. The two-hour outage is likely to be imposed in hour-long cuts at different times of the day.During the meeting, the board also suggested that power be purchased from private players in other states or ways be found to settle its dues of Rs 10,000 crore to energy producers within the state so power can be acquired from them, sources said.Officials also discussed the situation in rural areas, particularly in the southern and western parts of the state, where protests over lengthy outages threaten to spiral into a law and order problem.TNEB officials have identified private producers in other states from whom the board proposes to purchase around 400MW to bridge the state’s 4,000MW demand-production gap. “We don’t want to take a hasty decision because the cost of power is high in some states,” secretariat sources said.Officials said they expect partial relief if 400MW is purchased from private parties and the Centre supplies 100MW to Tamil Nadu as announced on Thursday. They said the situation will improve only when wind power generation starts in May. “Between May and October we will get between 1,000MW and 2,500MW from windmills across the state,” an official said.Purchase of power would mean additional expenditure for TNEB. “Banks are seeking government guarantees to extend loans to TNEB as the board’s credit rating is poor. The government may bail the board out as this is the most serious crisis the state faces,” a source said.Power demand in Tamil Nadu is around 12,000MW, but the state generates 7,500MW. With an early onset of summer this year, electricity consumption is expected to increase rapidly in the coming weeks.Intelligence sources said the power problem is likely to have an impact on the Sankarankoil by elections scheduled in March. “People are frustrated and we expect it will have impact on voting,” a source said.