Faced with mounting criticism over loadshedding, Punjab power utility — Punjab State Power Corporation limited (PSPCl) — has blamed “inadequate coal supplies to private thermal power plants” as reason for lesser power generation to meet increasing power requirements in the wake of ‘poor’ monsoon.
PSPCl, has said the demand for power in Punjab has crossed 2,350 lakh units per day during paddy season as against 2,000 lU in last season. “Due to unprecedented high temperature and complete failure of monsoon, the power demand has abruptly increased in Punjab,” PSPCl stated through advertisements.
It pointed out that though PSPCl was running its own thermal and hydel power plants to full capacity, the generation of power at private power plants was affected because of lack of coal supply.
“Nabha Power limited (NPl) Rajpura thermal plant is delivering only 500 MW out of 1,400 MW capacity as Coal India limited is unable to supply the committed coal. Talwandi Sabo thermal plant is unable to start any generation out of 660 MW capacity due to non-supply of coal by Coal India,” PSPCl said.
It said that the new thermal capacity of 1,560 MW of power could not be generated because of coal shortage. Rajpura and Talwandi Sabo thermal plants have annual coal requirement of 6.3 million tonne per annum and nine MTPA respectively.With paddy sowing season in progress, Punjab has been facing load shedding across all categories of customers ranging between five to eight hours per day. Besides, PSPCl has imposed peak load hours restrictions for 12 hours on large scale industry.
During a recent meeting, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal had raised the coal supply issue with Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda, and demanded uninterrupted supply of coal for power plants to ensure smooth transplantation of paddy.