As if skyrocketing temperatures weren’t enough during the summer months, power outages across the country – due to a shortage of coal – have added to citizens’ woes. The sweltering heat did little to dampen enthusiasm for the memes, however, and netizens created new ones under the hashtags #PowerCrisis and #PowerCuts.
India’s power sector problems are expected to worsen in the coming days with record power demands amid the heatwave which has added pressure on thermal power plants already struggling with low coal stocks. The central government has even decided to cancel several passenger train services to allow faster circulation of coal wagons.
As the government began to act to try and fix the problem quickly, in many states people were without power for hours including Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra , Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Union. territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
While some took to social media to vent their frustration, others joked that they didn’t have enough battery left in their phones to tweet their complaints. Some, including officials, posted funny videos and memes to shed some light on the situation.
In Jammu these days 😓 #PowerCrisis #Power cut pic.twitter.com/pOUbutT4he
— Tahir Ashraf (@Tahir_A) April 29, 2022
UPS battery store owners after a power crisis.#Power cut #PowerCrisis #CoalShortage pic.twitter.com/qmVZVEroYt
— Dirghayu Dave (@DaveDirghayu) April 30, 2022
Elon Musk has a plan for the electricity crisis.@Elon Musk#PowerCrisis #Power cut pic.twitter.com/pygWplfzsr
– Ministry of Sarcasm (@M_OfSarcasm) April 30, 2022
Electricity all over India, nowadays #Power cut #PowerCrisis #electricity pic.twitter.com/R3Txkn1jqr
—Abhinav Hariom Pandey | ExAMs – April 27 to May 18 (@Abhi_hariom) April 30, 2022
Electricity in my state every 3-4 hours#Power cut pic.twitter.com/PmZMoKbI3c
— Prithvi Kalra (@_Prithvi_kalra) April 30, 2022
State dwellers facing power outage problem on a hot summer day #power cut pic.twitter.com/GlR94weejl
— ayy.aisha (@igetlamerr) April 30, 2022
When your mobile has 4% battery and there is a power outage in your city.
#PowerCrisis #Power cut pic.twitter.com/bfkZ5n2CtM— Night Soul (@Mirage_gurrl) April 30, 2022
Electricity every 30 minutes #Power cut pic.twitter.com/nkiObQ6ack
— Sarcasm™️ (@SarcasticRofl) April 29, 2022
Power outage during summers
Me:#Power cut #summer #Heat wave pic.twitter.com/jflT1edshk— ANMOL KAUR (@anmol_banga) April 29, 2022
#electricity #CoalCrisis
Indians right now: pic.twitter.com/IusO4MAeHh— UdayB (@UdayBansalll) April 29, 2022
Me right now #Power cut pic.twitter.com/wl3tRUF43W
— Parikshit Khanna (@iparikshitdevil) April 29, 2022
During this time, the the railways have decided to cancel 753 journeysinvolving 42 trains, to prioritize the delivery of coal rakes across the country, mainly from major coal producing states including Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
On April 28, India faced a shortage of 192.1 million units of electricity as peak demand hit a new all-time high of 204.6 GW. On average, Indian thermal power plants had less than eight days of coal stock on Thursday against the standard of 24 days. Last week, India’s total power shortage reached 623 million units, surpassing the total shortage for the whole of March.