Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has sought the Prime Minster’s intervention to increase the supply of coal to the thermal plants in the State to avoid power cuts.

Over the past few days, the State has been experiencing power shortfall. As wind season has ended and power from some units is not available, the threat of power-cuts looms large in Tamil Nadu, which has avoided major outages in recent times.

Coal shortage

Chief Minister Palaniswami has stated that the coal stock in the State has reached a critically low level due to reduced supply from coal companies. At present, the thermal power stations of the Tamil Nadu government power utility (Tangedco) have stock sufficient only for three days, he said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

He explained that on an average 72,000 tonnes of coal is required daily to maintain continuous generation in the power plants of Tangedco. This translates into at least 20 rakes of coal receipt on a daily basis. However, on an average, Tangedco was receiving only 7 to 8 rakes daily.

“This coupled with the fact that the wind energy season also gets over by the middle of September has made the situation quite precarious. Unless the coal supply position is improved immediately, some of the thermal power stations will have to be shut down, leading to power outages in Tamil Nadu,” he said.

Wind power off

Wind power generation has dropped to double digit MW from more than 3,500 MW till a month ago. Though Tangedco has been procuring power to meet the shortfall, the significant drop in wind power capacity has widened the shortfall.

Palaniswami requested the Prime Minister to instruct both the Ministry of Coal as well as the Ministry of Railways to ensure a supply of 72,000 tonnes of coal daily to the State at the earliest.

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