Less than a month after a freight train carrying coal from Pachhwara Central coal mine in Jharkhand reached Ropar Thermal Plant on December 16, the coal supply has been stopped — resulting in a shortage of coal in the state.
In fact, the shortage of coal coupled with technical snags due to extreme winter conditions, two units of the Ropar thermal plant has been shut down — one because of coal shortage and another because of boiler tube leak. That was not all! One of the unit of Talwandi Sabo thermal power plant has also closed down due to technical failure, while a unit of Lehra Mohabbat power plant has been closed for the past eight months due to a boiler burst.
Power officials have attributed the situation to the intense cold which has resulted in a whopping increase in the electricity demand. Currently, the power demand in Punjab has crossed over 8,500 megawatts (MW).
Owing to the technical snags and coal shortage, the state’s power production has been less — 1400 MW — from the state’s thermal plants.
To meet the demand, the state power corporation — Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) or as popularly known as Powercom — is buying power from the central pool at a high rate.
The state’s thermal plants are facing a coal shortage as the labourers working there have stopped the work of lifting with some issues with the contractor. “There was some problem with the first contractor at the Pachwara coal mines…We get to know that he has not paid to the workers or there are some issues like that because of which there is a problem in lifting of the coal, and eventually resulting in no coal; supply from there…we are working on it,” said a power official.
When Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann received the first freight train carrying coal from Pachhwara Central coal mine at Ropar, he termed the development as “a giant leap towards making Punjab power surplus”. He even went on to say that coal from the Pachwara mine would be sufficient to meet the state’s requirements for the next 30 years.
The coal supply from Jharkhand’s mine was stopped days after the state Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO was patting the State Government’s back for operationalizing the coal mine with “concerted efforts”. He maintained that the mine was operationalized “by settling long pending litigations, forest clearance, environment clearance, groundwater clearance, mining lease, consent to establish, consent to operate, mine opening permission, and railway transport clearances”.
Notably, the Pachhwara Coal Mine, with a mining capacity of seven million tonnes per annum (MTPA), was allotted by the Union Ministry of Coal to PSPCL on March 31, 2015.
“It was not in operation for the last seven years. With its operationalization, about Rs 500 crore would be saved annually,” the Minister had claimed on Wednesday.