Team News Riveting
New Delhi, October 18
After months of subdued activity following the lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s power consumption in the first half of October registered a double-digit growth.
The increased power consumption is also a sign of recovering industrial and commercial activities. Power consumption grew 11.45 per cent to 55.37 billion units in the first half of October compared with the same month last year, mainly driven by buoyancy in industry.
Because of lockdown restrictions, the nation had witnessed consecutive six months of negative growth in power consumption. Later in September, the situation turned around with power consumption growing by a modest 4.6 per cent year-on-year.
In a period between October 1and 5, the power demand surged to peak from 164.25 GW last year to 170.04 GW. The peak power demand also witnessed de-growth from April to August this year.
Earlier this month, Power and Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh said, “In September, our power demand was higher than September 2019. So the growth started again. Despite the fact that Covid problem lingers, the growth in our power consumption and demand has started.”
