Panic over blackouts 'unnecessary': Power Minister on outage fears

Union minister for power RK Singh on Sunday said that the fears about coal shortage leading to blackouts are unfounded

A panic created about coal shortage is due to miscommunication from GAIL and Tata, the minister said amid huge concern about power supply in more than six states, including national capital Delhi.

The panic, Singh said, was "unnecessarily created" after officials from GAIL sent a message to distributors on the supply to be affected.

Singh warned GAIL and Tata Power against ‘acts of irresponsible behaviour’ that created panic and added that the country has reserves for another 4-5 days

He assured ‘under no circumstances the gas supply will come down’. He further added that ‘the supply of domestic or imported coal will continue irrespective of the charges and ‘Delhi will continue to get supply and there will be no load shedding’.

Several states including Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamil Nadu have flagged shortage of coal at power plants. Meanwhile, Punjab has already imposed rotational load shedding at several places.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warning that the national capital "could face a blackout" in the next two days if supplies did not improve.