By Reuters Oct 8, 2021 5:35:36 PM IST (Published)
India's power shortfall in the first seven days of October was over 21 times the deficit in the same period last year, and more than four times of that in 2019. Supply shortages over the last two years have largely been restricted to the strife-torn region of Jammu and Kashmir.
North Indian states have suffered electricity cuts and face further outages because of a lack of coal, an analysis of government data and interviews with residents found, contradicting government assurances there is enough power.
The shortages in India, the world's largest coal consumer after China, follow widespread outages in neighbouring China, which has shut factories and schools to manage the crisis.
Over half of India's 135 coal-fired power plants, which in total supply around 70 percent of India's electricity, have fuel stocks of less than three days, data from the federal grid operator showed.