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Turning off all lights at same time can affect emergency services: Maharashtra Minister

In his appeal, Maharashtra minister Nitin Raut said that people should not turn off their lights while lighting candles during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nine minutes of blackout call.

Turning off all lights at same time can affect emergency services: Maharashtra Minister
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After Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation said that people should light candles and diyas on Sunday to mark the fight against the coronavirus, Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut has raised concerns saying that turning off all lights at the same time can affect emergency services. 

In his appeal, the Maharashtra minister said that people should not turn off their lights while lighting candles during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nine minutes of blackout call. 

“Switching off lights all of a sudden may cause the grid to collapse. We should rethink. This can also affect emergency services including hospitals,” Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut said. 

Stating that electricity is an important tool in the fight against coronavirus outbreak, Raut explained that the switching off all the lights at the same time will lead to a potential blackout and may take up 12-16 hours to restore the services. 

“Due to the lockdown, the demand of electricity has already decreased from 23,000 megawatt to 13,000 megawatt as factory units are non-operational,” said Nitin Raut.

In the video, Maharashtra Power Minister Nitin Raut informed that a sudden drop in demand of electricity will cause the grid frequency to shoot up and cause the system including the generation units to collapse. The state has only residential and essential services demand, Raut added. 

As this happens, PowerGrid has asked all its officials to be on alter as there was a possibility of a grid collapse during the blackout while some state electricity boards also fear that sudden mass power fluctuations could lead to a multi-stage grid collapse and result in a blackout. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier appealed the citizens to light ‘diyas’, torches or mobile flashlight at 9:00 PM for nine minutes in solidarity to the fight against the coronavirus. The PM asked to switch off their lights and hold candles to fight the darkness of the coronavirus. 

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