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Power Ministry: No outage on power shortage, amid coal crisis

New Delhi: No outage was on account of power shortage in Delhi, said the Power Ministry today.

“As per the information received from Delhi discoms (Distribution companies), there was no outage on account of power shortage, as the required amount of power was supplied to them,” a ministry statement said.

On 11 October 2021, it stated that the maximum demand for Delhi was 4683 MW (peak) and 101.9 MU (Energy).

There was no energy deficit in the city from September 26 to October 11, a fact sheet on power supply in Delhi showed.

In Delhi, on October 11, 101.9 million units (MU) of electricity were available against a requirement of 101.1 MU.

The energy requirement and availability were the same in Delhi from September 26 to October 10.

Energy availability was higher than the requirement on Monday,

It also showed that peak power demand and peak power demand met (supply) was also remained same during the period.

The discoms in Delhi had drawn less power than made available to them, as per the data.

It showed that NTPC (coal) offered 15.67 MU to Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd (DDL) against the allocated 19.03 MU. But the Tata Power DDL had drawn 10.77 MU whis.ch is 68.74 per cent of the energy made available to it by NTPC (coal).

Similarly, power made available by Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) and NTPC (gas) to the discoms in Delhi was more than drawn by these utilities.

The other two discoms that supply power in Delhi are BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd.

Power crisis- unnecessary panic created, Union Minister of power RK Singh

The problem of power shortage was called a panic created because of miscommunication from GAIL and Tata. Union minister for power RK Singh said today amid huge concern about the power supply in more than six states, including national capital Delhi. “We have sufficient power available… We are supplying power to the entire country. Whoever wants, give me a requisition and I will supply them,” the minister said.

“The panic has been unnecessarily created and the country has four days’ reserve,” said the power minister. “Delhi will continue to get supply and there will be no load-shedding… The supply of domestic or imported coal will continue irrespective of the charges. Under no circumstances the gas supply will come down,” he added.

Since past one week several states — including Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamil Nadu — have flagged shortage of coal at power plants. Punjab has already imposed rotational load shedding at several places.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjriwal has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warning that the national capital “could face a blackout” in the next two days if supplies did not improve.

The panic, Mr Singh said, was created after officials from GAIL (Gas Authority of India Limited) sent “wrong messages” to distributors on the supply to be affected. “They have been pulled up by me,” he added.

Yesterday, the quantum of coal received was according to the demand and the country now has four days of coal reserves. The current reserve, he said, does not indicate that the country will run out. “It is just a reserve. We keep getting the supply and this is just a back-up,” he added.

The supply, he said, routinely drops during monsoon as the mines get flooded, but the demand remains high especially with the growing economy.

In October, as the demands drop, the stockpiles will start growing again. “Earlier, we used to have 17 days of coal stock from November till June,” he added.

Mr Singh also expressed reservations about Mr Kejriwal flagging the coal shortage issue to the Prime Minister.

“The Delhi Chief Minister should have spoken to me,” he said, adding, “Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor called me yesterday and I assured him there is no shortage in Delhi. We have power stations on stand-by”.
Taking a dig at the Congress, he said, “The Congress government should have raised its reserve during their tenure rather than load shedding in their time”.

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