'Situation Critical': Delhi CM Kejriwal as Power Min Says 2-3 Days of Coal Left

Amid a coal crisis, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sounded an alarm over the diminishing stock of coal in Delhi.

Amid an ongoing fuel crisis, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday, 11 October, sounded an alarm over the fast-diminishing stock of coal in the city's power plants. Image used for representatonal purposes. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Amid an ongoing coal crisis, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday, 11 October, sounded an alarm over the fast-diminishing stock of coal in the city's power plants.

"The situation is critical and many chief ministers have written about it to the central government. We all are working together to improve the situation."

Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi CM , as quoted by news agency ANI

Further, Delhi Power Minister Satyendra Jain, on Monday, urged the central government to offer relief.

"The Delhi government has an agreement with the NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation) of the Center under which they have to provide electricity to Delhi. Right now NTPC has cut the power generation of its plant by 50 percent, due to which Delhi is not getting enough power. Central Government I request you to resolve this issue as soon as possible," Jain said in a tweet.

"There is coal shortage in most of the power plants. The stock is left for only two to three days. NTPC capped production capacity of its plants to 55 percent. Earlier we used to get 4,000 megawatts of electricity but now we are not getting even half of that," the state minister was quoted as saying by ANI.

Power Crisis in Delhi

As India battles a crippling power crisis amid a reported shortage of coal supply, Delhi, Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) CEO Ganesh Srinivasan has warned that, "Delhi might have intermittent rotational load shedding in coming days as coal shortage across the country has led to reduced power generation."

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in a tweet on Saturday, 9 October, said, "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."

In his letter, CM Kejriwal suggested that "adequate coal be diverted from other plants like Dadri and Jhajjar" to be supplied to Delhi. He also requested gas allocations to Bawana, Pragati -I and GTPS plants supplying power to the city.

Officials of Delhi's Power Ministry, BSES, and Tata Power met with Union Power Minister RK Singh on Sunday, 10 October, to discuss the ongoing coal shortage in the country. Singh, however, denied any shortage of coal and added that there was reserve stock for the country's power generation, ANI reported.

Meanwhile, reports of power cuts in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh had surfaced this week. Rajasthan, too, on Friday, 8 October, had announced that it would impose scheduled power cuts for one hour every day to deal with the coal crisis.

(With inputs from ANI)