India's Power System Operation Corp (POSOCO), which oversees the national power grid, ordered all senior officials to be present at generating stations, substations and load despatch centres across India between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunday. POSOCO's parent body, Power Grid Corp of India, asked regional electricity transmission centre employees to be on "high alert," as the lights out plan could "lead to outage of grid elements due to grid constraints". India's Ministry of Power sought to allay concerns though, and said in a statement, "The Indian Electricity grid is robust and stable and adequate arrangements and protocols are in place to handle the variation in demand." India's power consumption has already plunged amid the lockdown to stem coronavirus cases - which rose to nearly 3,000 on Saturday. "Already the electricity demand and supply equation has been stretched," said Raut, adding the possibility of grid failures "could not be ruled out."

Source: bd News24 April 04, 2020 12:22 UTC