India stares at power crisis, govt assures of ‘ample coal’
Premium- Pralhad Joshi said coal companies are dispatching almost 2.0 million tone coal every day to power sector through various modes
NEW DELHI : As the country is staring at a power crisis with concerns over coal shortage, the union coal ministry said that ample coal is available in the nation which is being refilled regularly with record production and will serve the country for another month.
“Ample coal is available in the nation which is being refilled regularly with record production and will serve us for another month. Currently, 72.5 MT of coal is present at different sources like stock with @CoalIndiaHQ, SCCL, washeries, etc., and 22.01 MT with TPPs," the ministry said in a tweet on Sunday.
Further, the union coal minister Pralhad Joshi also took to Twitter and said that coal companies are dispatching almost 2.0 million tone coal every day to power sector through various modes.
He added that about 16.7 million tonne coal has been offered to the power generation companies to adequately fill their stocks.
“Coal companies are dispatching almost 2.0 MT coal every day to power sector through various modes, such as railways, roadways & RCR-mode. Additionally 16.7 MT coal has been offered to Power Gencos with option to lift this quantity through RCR-mode to sufficiently stock up," he said.
The statements from the government comes at a time when several states in the country are going through power outages and states are mostly attribution the outages to coal shortage.
According data from the Central Electrity Authority (CEA), as on April 21, the total coal stock at the 173 power plants under the ambit of CEA stood at 21.93 million tonne, which is 33% of the regulatory requirement of 66.32 million tonne. Out of the 173 plants, 108 plants were surviving on critical stock, which is less than 25% of the normative requirement.
On Friday, the power ministry on Friday amended the methodology for use of coal (allocated to states) by Private Power generating stations (IPPs). Larger visibility has been given to the power plants by extending the period of supply of coal from 1 year to 3 years.
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Last week, the ministry allowed states to use tolling facility of up to 25% of linkage coal in a bid to cater to the growing power demand and curb power shortage in the country. Tolling helps states to give coal to some other plant through competitive bidding where power can be generated and transmitted to the state with the original coal linkage.