A day after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over acute shortage of coal in power plants in the national Capital, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said that Kejriwal is trying to hide his own failures in handling the power situation.

“Increased demand has already been met by coal and railway ministries,” Goyal said at a Press conference on the sidelines of an Mission Raftar Workshop. Kejriwal on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to direct the Railways to provide rakes for transporting coal to power plants in Delhi-NCR, which, he said, are  facing “alarming level” of coal shortage.

“Demand for coal was very low from Dadri plant last year. Delhi was not consuming the amount of power it thought it would. Suddenly they increased demand for more coal, which has been met by Coal and Railways ministries,” said Goyal who holds both the Cabinet portfolios of Coal and Railways besides the Finance Ministry.

Goyal said  as the  year the power demand increased,  the demand for rakes more than doubled and  around 39 rakes of coal were sent to the plant.

Each rake is made up of 58 wagons and has a capacity of carrying 3,750 tonnes of coal.

“Both for coal mining and railway, it’s not a switch on, switch off that overnight you say we need more rakes and the system can gear up to supply rakes overnight,” said Goyal.

“Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s claims of inadequate coal supply in Delhi are false and baseless. Indian Railways is committed to ensuring adequate coal supplies in power plants serving Delhi and its supply has even been stepped up during the summer,” he said.           

“He is trying to hide his own failures. As the coal or railway minister, he has not written any letter to me, neither has he come to meet me in the past four years regarding the issue. I used to look after power, he has never come to see me even then,” Goyal said.