KTR slams Centre on coal imports

Hyderabad: TRS working president and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Friday slammed the Central government for its lack of basic planning and foresight with regard to coal imports which could lead to an additional burden on power consumers in the country. Due to the inefficiency of the Centre, the power tariff might go up soon, he said.

The Centre had recently firmed up plans to import about 76 million tonnes of coal to help the alleged shortfall in the supply of domestic coal to power plants during the current financial year. This move is expected to have an adverse impact on power generation and could result in an increase in power tariff by 50-80 paise per unit in all the States.

The Central government has already asked all the power generation companies to import coal to meet 10 per cent of their total demand. However, imported coal is about 10 times more expensive than domestic coal.

Highlighting the issue, Rama Rao, in a tweet, said lack of basic planning and foresight in the ‘NPA’ (non-performing asset as he refers to the NDA government at the Centre) resulted in a shortage of domestic coal that necessitated the import of coal which is 10 times more expensive. “So, the next time your power tariff goes up, you know who to thank. P.S: India has coal deposits which can last 100 years! (sic)” he tweeted, taking a jibe at the Centre.

As per the Centre’s own admission in the ongoing session of Parliament, the gap between demand and domestic coal supply in the power sector was reduced to a mere 3.66 per cent in 2021-22.