Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, March 31: A Reuters analysis of government statistics shows that India’s electricity shortfall of 574 million units from March 1 to March 30 was the biggest since October 2021.
Due to a shortage of supplies, India has had to reduce coal shipments to the non-power sector and postpone preparations for some fuel auctions for utilities without supply agreements.
In October, a chronic coal shortfall resulted in the greatest electricity deficit in nearly five years, with many north Indian states experiencing hours-long power outages.
Earlier, due to a scarcity of coal inventories available to thermal plants, India experienced a power supply constraint of 1,201 million units in October 2021, the most in 5.5 years.
Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, and Rajasthan were the states with the most shortages. In October 2021, Bihar recorded 120 million units of shortage, which is the highest for any month in 8.5 years. Jharkhand too recorded its highest deficit in more than a decade, with a shortage of 77 million units.
Meanwhile, according to an internal letter accessed by Reuters, state-run Coal India has cut supplies to the non-power industry – which includes aluminium smelters and steel mills – to 275,000 tonnes per day, down 18.3 percent from February and 29.8 percent from March 2021. This shortage of coal in the state government-owned utilities has led India to curtail coal supplies to the non-power sector and put on hold plans to increase the number of fuel auctions for utilities.
