Amid several states reeling under power crisis including Punjab, the Deputy Chief Engineer of the West circle, Ludhiana, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) Sanjeev Prabhakar on Friday said that the power outage in the state is not due to a shortage of coal but because of some technical fault in two major thermal plants that affected the power supply to the state.
Prabhakar said, “There is no shortage of coal in the state. The demand for electricity has increased up to 30-40 percent, all across the country, due to the extreme heat prevailing this summer,” he added.
“Two thermal plants in Talwandi Sabo power plant and Ropar power plant faced some technical issues, due to which around 800MW of power supply was affected,” he added.
Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Power had informed that the peak power demand in the country touched an all-time high of 207,111 MW on Friday, while the country was already facing the conditions of the extreme heatwave.
The demand for power has risen in April due to the heatwave and people in different parts of the country faced power cuts. The problem has been accentuated by a steep rise in prices of imported coal due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and some power plants that are not running to their full capacity.
Amid reports of a dip in coal stocks with thermal plants (due to a steep rise in the prices of imported coal because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict), the Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said that the country’s thermal plants hold about 22 million tonnes of coal which is enough for 10 days and replenishment will be done continuously.
Besides Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana, Bihar, and Maharashtra are among the states seeing power outages.
Delhi has also written to the Centre over the possibility of power cuts to important establishments.
The other states and Union Territories are also taking necessary steps to deal with the power crisis.
Meanwhile, the Indian Railways canceled 657 train trips to speed up the movement of coal rakes to power plants, which included 509 mail/express train trips/services and 148 MEMU train services. (ANI)
