Little back-up to keep power plants running in the battle against Covid-19

Assured electricity supply is critical to keep life-saving machines running, but it is difficult to ensure steady flow through the lines to semi-rural hospitals

At Jhanjhra coal mines in West Bengal, some 155 workers and their bosses are in some sort of quarantine, with all their supply lines having been taken care of so that there is no disruption as they extract the fossil fuel. The mine is one of the largest of Coal India’s subsidiary, Eastern Coalfields, supplying coal to electricity generating companies.

Coal production has been exempted from the countrywide lockdown and with good reason. There are no medicines to cure a Covid-19 patient but there are machines that can help and all of them run on electricity. 

“The mine is being