DNA Special: Why India is on the brink of a power crisis

Do you also feel that for the last few days the electricity in your house is going off again and again? If your answer is yes then this is not happening only with you as 135 crore people of India may be forced to live in darkness in the coming few days because India has only 2 to 5 days of coal left. Even today 70% of the electricity produced in India is from coal but the demand for coal is high and its supply is less. Therefore, you may have to spend several days without electricity.

This week started with the Black Out of Facebook and Whatsapp. 300 million people of the world were not able to use these social media platforms for 6 hours. Now think if the world went into Power Blackout, that is, the electricity production in the whole world came to a standstill, then what would happen?

This power crisis started in China, then many countries of Europe and South America fell victim to it, and now this crisis has also made India its victim.

There has been a huge shortage of coal in many big power plants in India. Electricity is produced in these power plants only and then from here, electricity is supplied to you and our homes, offices, and factories.

135 power plants in India run on coal. Out of these, 107 Power Plants are such, which have coal left for the next 5 days or less. There are 28 Power Plants whose coal can be exhausted in the next two days only. These are the figures till this Wednesday, which we have got from the website of the Ministry of Power.

Perhaps this is the reason why the electricity in your home and office is getting cut frequently. At present, the worst situation is in Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The Ministry of Power of India has also made it clear that this crisis can continue for the next 5 to 6 months so people should be ready. 

India's economy is emerging rapidly from the damage caused by COVID-19 and sectors like manufacturing are using more electricity than before. Even the demand for electricity has become more than in the pre-COVID era.

In August 2019, the consumption of electricity in India was 10 lakh 600 crore units which have increased to 12 lakh 400 crore units in August 2021. Electricity consumption in India has increased by 17% in just the last two months.

It is clear from this that India needs more electricity than before and for this, more coal is needed than ever before. But at this time it is not easy to get so much coal because like India, the economy of the whole world is coming back on track and more production is being done in factories than before.

Due to this the price of coal in the international market has increased by 40%. Hence, the import of coal is becoming very expensive.

India has the fourth-largest coal reserves in the world but in India also the production of coal is decreasing as compared to before. Mines failed to function properly due to heavy rains last month and India's domestic coal production also declined. 

India will have to find a solution because this will not only drown crores of houses in India but it will also affect the offices and factories and it may be that the offices and factories will also have to be closed for some time.

And if this happens, then the condition of the economy of India, which was affected by COVID, will be back to square one due to a shortage of coal. 

However, there is only one thing in India's favor and that is that winter is coming in India and generally, in winter the consumption of electricity in India is reduced to some extent but even then the gap between demand and supply may not be narrowing so soon.

You must be thinking that what has happened that all the countries are facing power crisis? 

For this, after COVID-19, the rapidly improving economy is most responsible. In 2020, factories, transport, offices all over the world were closed. Therefore, the demand for energy was reduced and most countries reduced their production of coal and oil.

But then economic activities resumed after the vaccines became available. And the demand for energy started increasing rapidly, but its supply did not increase.

The second reason for this is that many countries of the world are now trying to reduce carbon emission and are going towards green energy but the right road map has not been made for this and amid this haste, a power energy crisis has started all over the world.