Union Home Minister Amit Shah is chairing a discussion on the country’s current power crisis on Monday, stated an ANI report.

RK Singh, Ashwini Vaishnav, and Pralhad Joshi, ministers of power and railways, are also present. The conference comes as power outages have been reported in numerous states as a result of the heatwave.

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With various sections of northern India experiencing scorching pre-summer months, the country’s power demand has reached an all-time high. According to a Reuters examination of government data, power demand increased 13.2 percent to 135.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) while electricity demand in the north increased between 16 and 75 percent.

In April, major power outages were caused by high electricity consumption, as utilities battled to regulate demand as coal supplies depleted. Power supply fell 2.41 billion units, or 1.8 percent, short of demand, the largest shortfall since October 2015. The Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi has already declared that there is a severe coal shortage.

Also read: Why is India facing a power crisis?

“There is an “acute shortage” of coal due to the unavailability of an adequate number of railway rakes and there may be “difficulty” in electricity supply if power plants are shut,” Delhi power minister Satyendar Jain said.

Union Power Minister RK Singh reacted angrily to the Delhi administration, accusing it of deceiving the public. In a letter sent to the Delhi electricity minister, Singh voiced his anger with the Delhi administration for misleading the public, according to PTI.

Also read: Explained: Why India is facing a coal shortage

In response to the Delhi power minister’s letter expressing worry over the coal stock position of some NTPC units delivering power to the NCT of Delhi, Singh stated that the statistics were erroneous.