Even as the NTPC-Kaniha plant has complained of facing a coal crisis, the MCl which supplies it coal has denied it, clarifying that it has enough stock and the problem lies with lifting the coal to its stock yard by the NTPC.
Due to zero coal stock, the power production of the plant has gone down by 400 MW. As a result, this has severely affected power supply to Odisha and other 17 southern, eastern and north east States at the ongoing peak summer, said sources.
In the meantime, MCl Director (Personnel) lN Misha told that the NTPC, Kaniha, as per FSA ( Fuel Supply Agreement) is supplied with 46,000 tonnes of coal per day. “We have 8,000 million tonnes of coal stock and the NTPC can transport it by road through trucks. To supplement the additional requirement, they were asked to transport coal through road from any of our five mines of Talcher Coalfields namely Kaniha, Hingula, Balram, Bhubaneswari and lingaraj, but they have not done so as yet," said Mishra.
However, on the other hand, NTPC sources admitted that they are now not in a position to transport huge amount of coal due to traffic conditions and heavy pollution. There was unprecedented strike in the linked Kaniha Coal Mine for one month and coal supply was disrupted.
CIl Chairman AK Jha said, “Coal stock at power plants is now running for 11 days on an average. We are putting our best foot forward to ush it to 22 days and power plants should, henceforth, maintain this stock, as it is logistically impossible to serve the demand.” He further said that it is not correct to say there is a crisis of fuel as the MCl has 45 million tonnes (MT) of idle stock at pithead. The challenge is to reach this fuel to power plants, he said.
The company is now busy exploring transportation options to liquidate the stock, he added further.
With the commissioning of the MCl financed 53.5-km Jharsuguda-Barapali rail link, the MCl is now evacuating approximately two rakes of about 4,000 tonnes load of fuel each through the line. Once the rail operations are stabilised on the route, the MCl can evacuate 4-5 rakes a day. The MCl has already opened a 13-MT mine and capacity of another mine is escalated by 4MT. MCl’s production will also increase by 19 MT (over 13 per cent) this year, contributing significantly to the plan to step up CIl’s total production from 567 MT in 2017-18 to 652 MT in 2018-19, said MCl sources.
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Mines Rajesh Kumar Sinha denied that there is a coal crisis in the country and said the Government-run power generating plants are being offered coal over and above the committed quantities to let them meet the high levels of power demand.