The northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan on Friday said it would take an hour-long power cut due to a nationwide coal shortage that has pushed many utilities to the brink of running out of coal.
Rajasthan’s government-run utility said it would cut 10 major cities that are home to millions of people, making it the first state to officially schedule an outage because of the crisis.
The northern states, including Rajasthan, have faced acute power supply shortages for up to 14 hours in some areas, analysis of government data and interviews with residents showed there is enough power contrary to government assurances.
The shortage in India – the world’s second largest coal consumer – follows widespread outages in neighboring China, which has closed factories due to the crisis.
More than half of India’s 135 coal-fired power plants, which supply nearly 70% of the country’s electricity, have fuel stocks of less than three days, data from the federal grid operator showed.
The eastern states of Jharkhand and Bihar are also hardest hit by coal shortages, according to an analysis of daily load dispatch data from federal grid regulator POSOCO.
Separately, the state of Andhra Pradesh in the south said acute supply shortages were pushing it towards unscheduled power cuts, adding that crops could dry up if electricity is not supplied to irrigation pumps.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said, “The final stage of harvesting requires more water and if it is rejected, the fields will dry up and farmers will suffer.” Will happen.”
Reddy suggested supplying deep water well gas available with ONGC and Reliance to revive stranded gas-fired plants in the state, and lending liberally to distribution companies for financial institutions to buy coal. needed.
“The rates are increasing day by day in the real-time power markets. This is a very alarming situation and if the situation persists, the financial condition of the distribution companies will worsen,” Reddy said in the letter.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.
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