Centre slams Delhi for spreading panic over power crisis with wrong information

Union power minister RK Singh replied to Delhi's SOS letter and said it is reprehensible that the Delhi power minister sought to create panic spreading incorrect figures about coal reserve.

Updated on: May 1, 2022, 20:09:47 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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In another episode of Centre versus Arvind Kejriwal, the Union power ministry had claimed that the Delhi government has been misleading the public with incorrect information about the power situation in the national capital. The power minister has replied to the Delhi power minister's letter and said the figures of the stocks were not correct. Delhi power minister Satyendar Jain on Friday claimed some power plants have stock for only a day, raising alarm. The Delhi minister said Delhi's power demand has reached its peak and power supply to essential services like hospitals was also at stake.

Ranchi: Labourers carry coal onto goods train at Ashoka Coal Mines in Peeparwar, amid a power crisis due to shortage of coal, about 70 Kms from Ranchi, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (PTI Photo)
(PTI04_30_2022_000180B) (PTI) — Ranchi: Labourers carry coal onto goods train at Ashoka Coal Mines in Peeparwar, amid a power crisis due to shortage of coal, about 70 Kms from Ranchi, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (PTI Photo) (PTI04_30_2022_000180B) (PTI)

Amid power crisis, boiling heat, it's Centre vs Delhi on coal supply

In his letter to the Delhi government, Union power minister RK Singh said it was ‘reprehensible' that the panic was sought to be created by using the wrong figures. A similar situation was created in October 2021 regarding the disruption of power supplies which proved to be baseless, the minister said.

Dadri, Unchahar, Kahalgaon, Farakka and Jhajjar – all these power stations have sufficient reserve coal stocks for 5-8 days, the minister said adding that the stocks are replenished on a daily basis- both from domestic sources and coal imported for blending purposes. NTPC has also declared 100% availability from Dadri and Unchahar power stations, the minister mentioned in his letter.

The minister also said that in 2015, the Delhi government had surrendered some power capacity which had been allotted to Delhi from the central pool. Following this, the power capacity was offered to all states in the succeeding years (in 2017, 2018, 2019 etc.) and a number of allocations were made and Delhi Govt. did not object. In 2021, the Delhi government suddenly claimed that they had not surrendered the power which was wrong, the minister said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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