Bhubaneswar: Odisha is not facing coal shortage like other states and all coal mines in the state are operational, said Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra on Saturday.
In other states, there are 10 to 12 hours of power cuts due to lack of coal, but such is not the case in Odisha. The power situation in the State had been reviewed few days back.
Mahapatra has directed the Managing Director of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited to supply enough coal to all power plants.
An energy crisis is looming over a vast swathe of land from the northern states to southern India as low coal supplies across the majority of thermal power plants have set off blackouts in several urban and rural areas where domestic demand for electricity has spiked manifold because of an unusually early and record-shattering heatwave and dry weather.
But electricity production dwindled as coal supplies grew perilously low in many states like Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh that depend heavily on coal-fired plants for power generation.
As the shortages stoked fears of widespread blackouts, many states adopted measures like selective power cuts in the countryside to meet the demand in urban and industrial zones.
