By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Saturday said it has scaled up the delivery of coal to thermal power plants to avert electricity shortages in the festive season.
“The coal dispatch has now increased to 180 rakes as on Oct 14, out of which 149 rakes have been supplied to the power sector,” the coal ministry said in a statement.
According to the statement, around 40 rakes of coal per day has been supplied to various power plants in north India alone till Oct 14 and that the average supply would be increase to 53 rakes per day.
“The target is to increase it (supply) further to 53 rakes per day to meet their (power plants) requirements. The coal stock position in the power houses in north India is being monitored very closely,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, 140 rakes of coal was delivered to north India-based power plants during the last three days including 16 rakes to Badarpur power plant and 20 rakes to Dadri power station.
The statement added that coal supply was being shored at other power plants across India and that the situation is being monitored.
“Supply to the power stations located all over the country is being further augmented.”
The lack of coal supply to power plants due to varied reasons, including rains and civil strife has threatened to cascade into a pan-India crisis with states such as Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka facing power shortages.
The main reasons behind the shortage of feedstock are heavy rains in some coal producing areas, a two-day strike by workers of state-run Coal India last week and the disruption of mining in Andhra Pradesh due to an over-month long strike to press for a separate state of Telengana.
As a result, many of the units of the country’s largest power producing utility, the state-run NTPC, have been left with coal supplies for no more than two days. Some units were also operating at sub-optimal levels, power ministry officials said.