Centre asks States including Telangana to maintain coal stock

Following a decrease in coal reserves in over 166 thermal plants across the country including Telangana, the Centre has advised the States to maintain adequate stocks of coal to meet the energy demand.

Hyderabad: Following a decrease in coal reserves in over 166 thermal plants across the country including Telangana, the Centre has advised the States to maintain adequate stocks of coal to meet the energy demand.

The Union Power Ministry has revealed that there could be a possibility of an average shortage of 1.30 lakh tonnes per day. Stating that there could be shortage of goods trains to transport coal from the mines due to heavy rain across the country, the Centre has asked all the States to manage coal reserves. To overcome the shortage of coal, the Centre has suggested that every thermal station should import at least 4 percent of its daily coal consumption from abroad.

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According to officials, all the thermal plants in Telangana should have a continuous stock of 11,76,700 tonnes, but as of July 25, it was 8,04,800 tonnes which is 32 percent less. The Singareni needs to supply at least 2 lakh tonnes of coal per day to the thermal plants situated in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, but it was not able to do so as heavy rains had forced work in its mines to come to a standstill.

The Singareni was struggling to supply coal to its own thermal plant situated in the Jaipur area of Mancherial district. This plant should have a coal reserve of 3.29 lakh tonnes on a regular basis, but currently it was having a coal reserve of 1.60 lakh tonnes due to the rains, sources said.

According to officials, the Coal Ministry was working on a ‘monsoon management plan’ to ensure adequate availability of the fuel at power plants during the rainy season when both coal production and evacuation were impacted. “Coal production and evacuation typically slows down during the monsoon in the country every year. This is the period when the mining and supply of coal get impacted due to the heavy rainfall, ” officials said.

Interestingly, earlier this year, the Coal Ministry had ruled out any possibility of a dry coal shortage in the monsoon season and said that it had sufficient stocks to meet the demand of power plants.