Coal crisis: Delhi may soon face load shedding; Kejriwal seeks PM's intervention

Both Delhi and the Centre are mulling ways to handle the grim situation to arrange or divert coal for power generation, TPDDL CEO Ganesh Srinivasan informed.

As India battles severe coal shortage impacting power generation, power discom Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) CEO Ganesh Srinivasan on Saturday said that Delhi may see an intermittent rotational load shedding in the coming days. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting his intervention for the diversion of adequate coal and gas to power plants supplying electricity to the national capital amid the prevailing crisis.

Coal crisis: Delhi may soon face load shedding; Kejriwal seeks PM's intervention (Representative image)

Taking to Twitter, Kejriwal informed that he is personally keeping a watch over the situation and his government is trying its best to avoid it. "In the meanwhile, I wrote a letter to Hon’ble PM seeking his personal intervention," he further wrote, attaching a copy of the letter to the Prime Minister.

TPDDL CEO Ganesh Srinivasan, in a statement, said coal-based power stations are left with coal stocks that will last one-two days to meet generation requirements as against 20 days as per applicable regulations, reported PTI. "As a result, Delhi might go through intermittent rotational load shedding," he added.

Both Delhi and the Centre are mulling ways to handle the grim situation to arrange or divert coal for power generation, Srinivasan further informed.

Meanwhile, TPDDL has already started sending SMS to its customers based in north and northwest Delhi, urging them to use electricity judiciously.

"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,” read an SMS received by a TPDDL consumer in Burari.

About coal crisis

According to a report carried by PTI earlier this week, the coal supply crisis seems to be deepening as 64 non-pithead power plants are left with less than four days of dry fuel stocks.

The latest report from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) also showed that 25 such power plants had coal stocks for less than seven days as on October 3. 

The report also showed that 17 plants -- with a cumulative installed power generation capacity of 21,325 MW -- had zero coal stocks while 20 power plants of 22,550 MW capacity had one day of the dry fuel stocks.