Bhopal Apr 21 PTI In an embarrassment for the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh a power outage affected Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans speech during an event here on Thursday prompting him to admit that there was coal crisis in the state while the opposition Congress took a dig at the ruling dispensation over the issue The incident took place in the state capital during a function organised in the afternoon on the occasion of Civil Services Day As the power cut occurred in the middle of his speech Chouhan said Is Sanjay Dubey principal secretary of energy department around His comment triggered laughter among the audience The chief minister then tapped the microphone to check whether it was working or not and then said There is a coal crisis I had held talks with Sanjay Dubey on Wednesday morning and he requested me for some rakes of coal Chouhan said The chief minister continued his speech despite the power outage for five minutes before the electricity supply resumed Taking a dig at the BJP government state Congress spokesman Narendra Saluja said in a tweet There was a power outage for a long time while Mamaji CM was addressing a Civil Services Day function at Academy of Administration Mamaji also talked about the coal problem Power crisis has manifested in MP he added Two days ago All-India Power Engineers Federation AIPEF said that thermal plants across the country were grappling with coal shortages indicating a looming power crisis in the country Thermal plants across the country are grappling with coal shortage as the power demand in states has increased and many of them are not able to bridge the gap between demand and supply because of insufficient coal stocks at thermal plants AIPEF spokesperson V K Gupta had said in a statement The Union Power Ministry has recommended the import of coal for blending up to 10 per cent to ensure adequate stock when the power demand is at its peak in the next few months PTI LAL NP NP

Bhopal Apr 21 PTI The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI has arrested a superintendent of Central Goods and Service Tax CGST and Central Excise for allegedly demanding and accepting Rs two lakh bribe from a businessman on the promise of settling a case against him officials said on Thursday The official Ankur Khandelwal was arrested on Wednesday they said Searches were later conducted at the premises of Khandelwal and his colleague Chetan Saxena which led to the recovery of incriminating documents and articles the officials said A case was registered against these two superintendents of CGST and Central Excise with Bhopal office at Arera Hills based on a complaint which alleged that they had demanded Rs 10 lakh from the complainant for settling a CGST case against his partnership firm However after negotiations the accused had fixed bribe amount at Rs two lakh Khandelwal is being produced in a special court hearing CBI cases here PTI LAL NP NP