 "Power crisis will crush small industries, says Congress on coal shortage")
A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a meeting of the concerned department on power situation, the Congress on Wednesday attacked the Centre and alleged that only eight days of coal was left in the country.
"8 years of big talk has resulted in India having ONLY 8 DAYS of coal stocks.
"Modi ji, stagflation is looming. Power cuts will crush small industries, leading to more job losses.Switch off the bulldozers of hate and switch on the power plants," said Randeep Surjewala, Congress General Secretary in a tweet.
Shah on Tuesday had chaired a meeting with Power Minister R.K. Singh, Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav to assess the situation following reports of coal shortage reported by many states.
The meeting was held in the Home Ministry in the North Block to review the power situation and supply of low ash coal to various thermal power plants in the country, the officials said.
In the hour-long meeting, the Ministers reportedly discussed the availability of coal to power plants and the current power demands because the temperature has gone up early this year in April itself.
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This move comes in the wake of many states having reported about the low stocks of coal.
As many as 12 states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Jharkhand and Haryana are facing power cuts because of less coal supply.
The thermal power companies are facing shortage of low ash coal because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war as they were unable to get coal loads from Russia.
It was learnt that the Railways Minister has been directed to rush coal loads to the thermal power plants whose coal stocks are on minimum level.
Meanwhile, it was also learnt that the government is mulling to explore the possibility of cheap coal from other countries to meet the shortage that arose after the Russia Ukraine war.
Earlier in October last year, a similar meeting was also held to meet the coal shortage in the country.
--IANS
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