India’s coal hub, Jarkhand, has been one of those affected by the ‘hell weather’ in the country, which reached 42-45 degrees Celsius.
The heat wave in India has an impact on the electricity crisis in the country, Jharkhand is no exception. In fact, this city is one of India’s main coal producers which has 150 mines.
Coal fuels more than 70 percent of the country’s electricity generation.
Many residents of this coal-rich region have complained that frequent power cuts have disrupted their lives and jobs.
“There is an open-pit coal mine in what used to be my land. However, we had no electricity for 10 hours or more,” said one resident of Jarkhan, Rajak, 30, quoted by Reuters on Thursday (26/5).
He later shared, “We’ve been burning with this pollution for years because of the coal mine, but haven’t gotten anything. All I want is for my wife to be comfortable and be able to take a bath at home.”
The extreme heat in India is pushing electricity use to an unprecedented high. Many people turned on the air conditioner, thus triggering a power outage.
Responding to residents’ complaints, Jarkhan electricity council official said the area has enough power to meet demand in summer. That’s about 2,600 megawatts of power from federal, private and state-owned electric utilities.
Jharkhand state power distribution company managing director KK Verma said as long as Jharkhand gets a full allocation from the central power company, there is no electricity shortage in the state.
However, Kumar Yadav, director of the industrial pollution program at the Nivit Center for Science and the Environment, has his own opinion.
For him, this dependence is at the core of the country’s electricity crisis. This is because national-level power plants are unable to meet demand, partly because of a severe coal shortage.
“Jarkhand has not added a megawatt of electricity in two decades and has purchased electricity from thermal plants in other states which have their own priorities,” Yadav said.