Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to twitter to warn the national capital of a possible power crisis due to the prevailing coal shortage. He wrote a letter requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in order to help prevent and solve the crisis.
“Delhi could face a power crisis. I am personally keeping a close watch over the situation. We are trying our best to avoid it. In the meanwhile, I wrote a letter to Hon’ble PM seeking his personal intervention.” Kejriwal tweeted on Saturday.
In his letter, Kejriwal asked for adequate coal to be diverted to the plants like Dadri-II and Jhajjar TPS, which supply to Delhi. He asked that APM gas be allocated to plants supplying to Delhi and an adequate quantity of NAPM gas be supplied to power stations in Delhi. He also suggested that the maximum rate of power sold through the exchange be capped to discourage profiteering from the crisis.
This warning came hours after the Tata Power arm operating in Delhi had sent phone messages to its customers to use electricity judiciously in the afternoon while referring to the coal shortage issue.
The SMS sent on Saturday stated: “Due to limited coal availability in generation plants across north, power supply scenario between 2 pm to 6 pm is at critical level. Kindly use electricity judiciously. Be a responsible citizen. Inconvenience caused is regretted – Tata Power-DDL.”
Earlier last week, Power Minister R K Singh had admitted that there is a coal shortage at thermal power plants in the country and termed it as ‘beyond usual.’
The power availability situation is alarming due to the long festive season with additional demand.