Electricity is power, don’t waste it, burn as much as you need! We have been hearing this slogan since childhood. But this time suddenly everyone has remembered it again. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has appealed to the people by tweeting, ‘Unitedly support the government in improving the situation. Keep non-essential power tools off of your home or workplace. Set your priorities and use electricity according to your need. Ashok Gehlot is not the only one who is worried about the power shortage. Their national leader Rahul Gandhi has already written on Facebook that the country is facing severe power crisis and people in many states are facing power cuts of eight hours each. Delhi’s Power Minister Satyendar Jain has even warned that there may be a cut in power supply to hospitals and metro.
It is a matter of concern that the power crisis has not come for the first time. It was almost the same seven months back in October as well. The coal stocks in the country’s power stations were on the verge of running out and power shortage was troubling people in large parts of the country. Now the crisis is getting more serious, because in April itself, the temperature of summer was seen breaking the record of June. To counter this, the use of fans, coolers and ACs is increasing rapidly, and there has also been a sudden jump in the demand for electricity.
Another reason for the crisis is the lack of coal. And, more than a lack of coal or electricity, this problem appears to be the result of a lack of arrangements or foresight. For tens of years, it has been said that India produces less electricity than it needs, so saving electricity is essential. But now the picture has reversed. Union Power Minister RK Singh had claimed in Parliament in March that there cannot be a power crisis in India as we are generating more electricity than we need. He said that in the financial year 2020-21, the peak demand for electricity in the country, that is, the day when the maximum power was needed, was 203 GW. And at present the total electricity generation capacity of the country is 39,9417 MW, i.e. about 399 GW. Then what is the reason that the power crisis seems to be deepening in half a dozen states of the country? The worst situation is of Rajasthan, where there is a shortage of about 19 crore units in front of the demand of 182 crore units. In Haryana, there is a shortage of nine crore units against 108.94 crore units, in Uttar Pradesh there is a shortage of 6.5 crore units against the demand of 295 crore units and in Madhya Pradesh there is a shortage of 5.5 crore units against 190 crore. In Jharkhand, despite the demand being 21.67 crore units, there is a shortfall of 4.5 crore units. Uttarakhand, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are also facing power shortage. In the last one week itself, there has been a shortage of 623 million units of electricity, while in the entire month of March, the power shortage does not reach here even after adding it.
What is the reason for this shortage? There are different answers to this. The Union Power Minister says that only the state governments are responsible for the crisis. Not only this, Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar also said that four to five thousand MW power was available in the account of the Center, which could be given on the demand of the states, but no demand came from anywhere. Whether the state governments are responsible or not can be disputed, but it is true that the real reason behind the shortage of power or lack of coal is lack of money and lack of arrangements.
In India, 53 percent of the claimed power generation capacity is from coal. India has the largest coal reserves in the world, but many of the country’s power plants buy coal from abroad and use it. There are two reasons for this. One is that the quality of coal coming out of India’s mines is poor and secondly because the cost of transporting coal to remote areas of the country is higher than that of imported coal. Due to the first Corona and now the Ukraine crisis, the prices of coal have gone up significantly in the markets around the world, so these power plants have faced difficulties. They don’t want to buy expensive coal from abroad and sell electricity at old price, so now they want coal from Coal India. Despite having huge reserves of coal, Coal India cannot meet this demand immediately, as it takes time and money to extract the coal from the mine and transport it to the power station by goods train. If preparations had been made in advance, the situation might not have been so bad.
The second problem is that the state governments or their electricity boards do not have the money to pay for coal. Coal India owes Maharashtra Rs 2,608 crore, West Bengal Rs 1,509 crore, Jharkhand about Rs 1,000 crore. After this comes the turn of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, electricity bills purchased from central government power stations also have to be paid. That’s why state-run power distribution companies and state governments take the easy route to cut power and save money.
In such a situation, the people who are most upset are those who have been honestly paying the full price of electricity and are ready to pay even further. But there have been so many obstacles in the way of reaching electricity from the power stations to their homes that it is a challenge to deal with them.
(These are the author’s own views)