Power, coal ministry chart plan to deal with coal shoratge

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

• Shopping Festival

New Delhi, July 6: The ministries of power and coal have agreed on a detailed roadmap to deal with the existing shortages of coal for power plants.

Power minister PM Sayeed and minister of state for coal Dr DN Rao agreed at a recent meeting that while coal supplies, in the short term, will be augmented by imports (around 13.45 mt coal imports have been planned for 2005-06), all future coal linkages will be provided based on the performance of the power stations.

Giving details, Mr Sayeed told FE that for the country as a whole, the overall linkage will correspond to 80% plant load factor (PLF) of power stations. “For power stations of NTPC and many state electricity boards (SEBs), it was agreed that the coal linkage will be related to 95% PLF so that if there is some slippage in coal supplies, it would definately meet the 90% PLF mark,” the minister said.

While all coal companies will be asked to step-up production, it has also been agreed that the expansion projects of existing coal mines will be cleared soon.

Mr Sayeed pointed out that there were 28 projects of different subsidiaries of Coal India Limited (CIL) which are linked to 10th plan power projects. Out of these, only four have been cleared so far. “Two projects have been recently cleared by the cabinet and the minister of coal has assured me that projects would be put up for speedy clearances. Besides, there will befurther speeding up of allotment of captive coal blocks,” the minister added.

Around 9,000 mw capacity based on coal is scheduled for commissioning during 2006-07 and the coal demand in this period is 367 mt. Given the current availability, there is a gap of over 30 mt.