As several States across the country were hit with intense heatwaves, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a meeting to review the preparedness to deal with the rise in temperatures as well as the upcoming monsoon season.
According to the India Meteorological Department’s Monthly Weather and Climate summary, April this year ended as the third warmest in India in 122 years. This comes after March had remained the warmest over the same period.
Prolonged and frequent heatwaves affected major parts of the country during April, taking the maximum temperatures at many places in west Rajasthan, east Uttar Pradesh, west Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha in Maharashtra to over 45 degrees Celsius.
Modi held seven to eight meetings during the day following his return from the three-day visit to many European countries.
The Prime Minister reviewed the heat-wave situation, power and coal supply and measures for the upcoming monsoon season and gave instructions to officials to mitigate the overall impact of rising temperature across the country.
The maximum temperature in Delhi was hovering between 42 to 46 degree celsius last week. The peak power demand in Delhi rose to 6,194 MW on Monday, the highest ever for the first week of May. The power demand had crossed the 6,000 MW mark for the first time in April. It was over 6,000 MW on several days in the last week of April amid a rise in maximum day temperature.
According to an estimate ,due to the lack of adequate coal supply to thermal plants, several states in the country are now experiencing power outages for multiple hours. Electricity supply fell behind demand by 1.88 billion units, or 1.6 per cent, during the first 27 days of April.
The total electricity shortage in the country was reported to have hit 623 million units, surpassing the total shortage in March.
The Railway Ministry has cancelled around 1,100 trips till May 24 to facilitate movement of coal rakes to power stations. In order to mitigate coal shortage, around 500 trips of express mails and 580 trips of passenger trains have also been cancelled. eom