India's March electricity shortage worst since coal crisis in October
Categories: DAILY NEWS
India's electricity shortage from March 1 to March 30 was its worst since October, a Reuters analysis of government data shows.A surge in power demand in March has forced India to cut coal supplies to the non-power sector and put on hold plans for some fuel auctions for utilities without supply deals due to a slump in inventories.Shortages in the eastern state of Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in the north surpassed those of October, the latest data showed. The western state of Gujarat, one of the country's most industrialized, has ordered a staggered shutdown of "non-continuous process" industries in key cities next week, according to a government note reviewed by Reuters.The deficit in March was 574 million kilowatt-hours, a measure that multiplies power level by duration, a Reuters analysis of data from federal grid regulator POSOCO showed. That amounted to 0.5 per cent of overall demand for the period, or half the deficit of 1per cent in October.The northern states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab and the eastern state of Bihar, some parts of which suffered widespread outages in October, accounted for most of the deficit in March, but shortfalls were lower, the data showed.