Ongoing Power crisis in Jharkhand affects daily and business life

Ranchi: Suffering continuous hours of a power outage for the past several days, daily life and business of the locals halted in Jharkhand's Ranchi.

"The business is being fizzled out, as every day we have to face a power crisis for 3-4 hours. I am a stationery shop owner with Photocopy machines who keep the shop open for around 14-15 hours. Of these 15 hours, we work only 4-5 hours due to the unavailability of power," said a local shopkeeper on Thursday.

Another shop owner in the city told ANI that they have to face a number of difficulties due to the power shortage.

The unavailability of power remains for hours as the power supply gets halted every one or two hours.

"We stay in the Sun throughout the day and while we expect some satisfying business to happen in the evening, the electricity goes off," said Manoj Kumar Dubey.

"At this point, when it's the time to close the shop, there is no power and we won't find it in the home either. In such scenarios, we are not even able to run motors and even there will be no cold water for drinking in the fridge," he added.

The Managing Director (MD)- Chairman of the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), PM Prasad said that they have reviewed the production of CCL and Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL). "We (CCL) have been given a target to provide 2.20 lakhs tonnes of coal per day to the power plants.

ECL has asked to provide 75,000 tonnes of coal," said PM Prasad. "Currently, we have a coal stock of 6.6 million tonnes, of which 2 lakh tonnes are distributed every day, so our stock will last up to 30 days," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Sakshi Singh, the wife of cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni had questioned the Jharkhand government over the "power crisis" in the state. She took to Twitter and (being a taxpayer) asked the government for the reason behind the power crisis in the state for so many years.

"We are doing our part by consciously making sure we save energy!", she wrote in her tweet. Her tweet came amid the reports of the coal shortage in the country.

However, referring to the non-working of thermal plants in their full capacity (due to the surge in prices of imported coal), the Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, on Thursday, said that the country's thermal plants hold about 22 million tonnes of coal which is enough for 10 days and replenishment will be done continuously.

Earlier in the day, Joshi had held a review meeting with the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the Central Coalfields Limited and other senior officials and carried out a detailed discussion on further increasing coal production and offtake from the CCL.

The Delhi Government, also, expressed its concern over the possible shortage of coal in power plants that supply electricity to the national capital and wrote a letter to the Central Government, on Thursday, urging it to ensure adequate coal supply.