The spurt in demand for power over the last three quarters has led to a ‘so called feeling of shortages’ according to Minister of Coal, Piyush Goyal.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference to highlight the achievements of his ministries over the last 4 years, Goyal said, “as the demand is growing very rapidly in the last 8 or 9 months, this so called feeling of shortages, has crept in. But the coal and rail ministries are working together so that at no point of time anybody loses the ability to generate power for lack of availability of coal.”

Goyal said that here has been an increase in production to meet the higher demand, “The coal production, which was 462 million tonne in 2013-2014, has increased to 567 million tonne in 2017-2018 and in the current year, there has been a growth of almost 15 per cent in the first two months (April and May) of this financial year.”

“Because of the rise in demand, Coal India had ramped up production massively. As of March 31, 2017, there was nearly 69 million tonne of coal stock. This was a level at which we were worried about a massive loss in the event of a fire there. Post that there has been a surge in demand, which we are now meeting with the enhanced production and the dispatch,” he added.

Auguring that there will be more pressure on coal production, Goyal said, “I think there will be a robust demand for coal based power. We are also trying to encourage plants which are based on imported coal to redesign their capacities so that they can use more domestic coal.”

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