Power shortage continues to trouble India

June 2, 2012

power_shortage

New Delhi, June 2: It's summers in most parts of India and demand for power is at a peak of 2,17,000 megawatt (MW). But the power generation is much less at 1,99,877 MW and poor transmission and distribution is making it worse.

Many cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai are facing long power cuts and 40 per cent of the country does not get electricity at all. About 6 lakh villages do not have any network to receive electricity. CNN-IBN has learned that 30 power stations have just about a week's coal left to fuel the power plants.

Coal India which supplies coal to 80 per cent of India's power plants has a shortage of 142 million tonnes because of lack of environmental clearances and land acquisition problems. But coal shortage is not the only reason for the summer sweat.

"It is not remarkable. It does not have much significance. Only about 1-1.5 per cent generation is impacted due to coal shortage. We are planning for huge capacity addition in future. AT&C losses (aggregate technical and commercial losses) are there. Lack of transmission lines. Southern India is not connected to rest of the national grids," says MoS Power KC Venugopal.

Glitches in the electricity supply chain have made problems worse. Coal supply is not only short but expensive also for these power plants, the equipments at some power plants are old and faulty, transmission systems are too old to take the required load and distribution bottlenecks are equally stifling. This requires huge network of cables, conductors and transformers. Change in power tariffs is the need of this hour, power utilities are not putting more money in infrastructure development.

"The main problem for the shortage is there is a lag in the distribution infrastructure development. The distribution infrastructure in the whole country has not kept pace with a development on the generation side. Even if you may have electricity available from the generators but the power does not reach the end consumer because the infrastructure for distributing that power is not given," says CEO BSES Yamuna Power Ltd Ramesh Narayanan.

The PMO's recent intervention pushing coal companies to sign supply agreements have shown no significance. In fact, the government is piling on problems by overlooking the worsening financial health of power distribution companies which are a vital part of power supply chain. It's high time the government works on all levels of power generation to save the nation from a complete blackout soon.

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News Network
May 18,2020

May 18: Goldman Sachs expects India will experience its deepest recession ever after a poor run of data underscored the damaging economic impact of lockdowns in the world’s second-most populous nation.

Gross domestic product will contract by an annualized 45% in the second quarter from the prior three months, compared with Goldman’s previous forecast of a 20% slump. A stronger rebound of 20% is now seen for the third quarter, while projections for the fourth quarter and first of next year are unchanged at 14% and 6.5%.

Those estimates imply that real GDP will fall by 5% in the 2021 fiscal year, which would be deeper than any other recession India has ever experienced, Goldman economists Prachi Mishra and Andrew Tilton wrote in a note dated May 17.

India’s government has extended its nationwide lockdown until May 31, while further easing restrictions in certain sectors to boost economic activity, as coronavirus cases escalate across the country. The announcement followed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fifth briefing in as many days, in which she outlined details of the country’s $265 billion virus rescue package, which is equivalent to 10% of India’s GDP.

 “There have been a series of structural reform announcements across several sectors over the past few days,” the Goldman economists wrote. “These reforms are more medium-term in nature, and we, therefore, do not expect these to have an immediate impact on reviving growth. We will continue to monitor their implementation to gauge their effect on the medium-term outlook.”

Infections are surging across the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people, with more than 91,300 infections, including 2,897 deaths as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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News Network
January 9,2020

New Delhi, Jan 9: The Union government has removed the central security cover of Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam and DMK leader M K Stalin, officials said on Thursday.

They said while Paneerselvam had a smaller 'Y+' cover of central paramilitary commandos, Stalin had a larger 'Z+' protection.

The security cover of these two politicians has been taken off from the central security list after a threat assessment review was made by central security agencies and approved by the Union home ministry, they said.

Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) commandos were protecting these two leaders of Tamil Nadu.

However, they said, the central security cover will be formally taken off after the state police takes over their security task, they added.

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News Network
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11: The government has decided to rename National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM), Faridabad, as Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Set up in 1993 as a registered society under the Department of Expenditure, NIFM trains officers of Finance and Accounts Services recruited by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) as also officers of Indian Cost Accounts Service. The Union Finance Minister is the President of the NIFM Society.

"Aligning the vision and aspiration of the Institute for the future with the vision and contribution of late Arun Jaitley, the Government has decided to rename National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) as the Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management(AJNIFM)," the statement said.

NIFM has become a premier resource centre to meet the training needs of the central government for senior and middle level of management in the fields of public policy, financial management, public procurement and other governance issues for promoting highest standards of professional competence and practice.

Padma Vibhushan awardee Jaitley was the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs during May 26, 2014 to May 30, 2019.

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