A slew of measures are being taken to try and mitigate the ongoing power crisis. Under fire for faltering on supplies to power utilities, coal companies have now been asked by the Coal Ministry to work overtime to ensure priority movement of fuel to key power stations.
The Ministry has claimed that NTPC Ltd's key power stations — 705 MW Badarpur plant, 2,000 MW Rihand, 1,820 MW Dadri, 2,000 MW Singrauli and 1,050 MW Unchahaar stations — have been despatched more rakes of coal than they require for daily operations over the last three days, which could go into replenishing the critically low stocks at the stations.
Coal companies are managing to augment supplies mainly through the liquidation of stocks lying at pitheads at some of the eastern region coal fields. The next few days may see a respite for the southern region as well, with generation at NTPC's 2,600 MW Ramagundam station rapidly rising.
Hope to consumers
NTPC is juggling around fuel from various sources, including imported coal and fuel from Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, Singareni Collieries and other sources, to restore full-scale operations. With Coal India Ltd planning to divert 4 million tonnes of coal from its e-auction quota to power utilities as a stop-gap measure to plug the shortfall, the situation is expected to improve further.
This offers some hope to consumers too, as it helps ease fuel constraints at power plants, increasing electricity supply in the coming days. The Coal Ministry has directed raising loading of coal to 180 rakes, of which an average of 145 rakes is being supplied to the power sector.
The crisis has been triggered by floods in States in the eastern region that has affected coal output and the ongoing coal shortfall due to a strike at Singareni Collieries.
In all, nearly 8,000 MW of thermal capacity is estimated to have been affected due to the coal strike and the shortages at NTPC stations. There has been a drop of another 100 million units in hydro generation due to the receding monsoon, aggravating the power shortage problem.