Even as the heatwave and power crisis continues in the country, the Centre reeled out statistics to claim that the situation is not that grim as it is said to be.
The government sources said that the country has 220.2 lakh tonnes of coal stock available across power plants and it is enough to meet 9 days requirement.
The power demand hit all-time high of 207.11 GW at 2.50 pm on Friday compared 182 GW in April 2021 and 133 GW in April 2020, the Ministry of Power said in a tweet.
The rake availability with the Railways has gone up from 377 in January 2022 to 411 in April 2022.
Power generation capacity of imported coal-based (ICB) plants also increased from 4GW in January 2022 to 10 GW April 2022, it said.
The power ministry sources add that all gencos have been advised to import coal for blending purposes up to 10 percent.
As much as 1.75 MT coal arrived in April, 3.5 MT will arrive in May and NTPC and DVC will make MT available in August, the ministry sources added.
The government has initiated steps to avoid long distance transportation of coal with tolling facilities. Moreover, Indian Railways is procuring one lakh additional wagons to augment its rake capacity to meet the pressing needs and this new rakes will be inducted into the Railways by September 2022, sources added.
Even though the power scenario is so worst, so far only 3-4 states have placed orders for import of coal. The Centre has advised other states to place orders by May 2022.
The government sources added that the delay by states in operationalizing ICB plants and sorting out commercial issues is putting pressure on coal supplies.
Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu yet to take action on Central Government’s directions in this regard, the ministry added.
Discoms are not making timely payments to gencos and this is adding more problems to the current situation. So far discoms owe Rs 1,05,000 crore as dues to gencos, this includes Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.
Maharashtra, West Bengal and Rajasthan could not build up coal stocks and the state gencos owe Rs 7,918 crores to coal companies.
Moreover, some states, which have gas based power plants, have not made advanced arrangements as per the PPA, the sources added.
Separately, the Railways, which is often blamed for disruptions in coal supplies as the lack of carriages, has cancelled some passenger trains to allow for faster movement of coal carriages.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
