Govt plans to phase out e-auction of coals for smooth supply to plants
With at least eight major thermal power plants belonging to National Thermal Power Corporation of India (NTPC) across the country left with less than a week’s stock of coal, the Government has planned to phase out e-auction of coal to ensure smooth supply of dry fuels to power plants. Coal India ltd (CIl), which sells around 10 per cent of coal through e-auction, has been directed by the Coal Ministry to divert this quota to thermal power plants.
Highly placed sources told The Pioneer that the sale of coal by CIl through e-auction will be phased out. Under this plan, the quota of coal to be e-auctioned in this financial year will be cut by half to 26 million tonnes. CIl sells around 52 million tonnes of coal through e-auction.
“E-auction will be phased out, but at the same time we will ensure that CIl’s profitability is not impacted,” a source told this correspondent.
As on July 20, 2014, two thermal power plants of NTPC, namely Talcher and Kahalgaon, are in a critical state. They are left with six days of fuel. Another six NTPC plants have less than four days of coal stock.
These are Dadri (four days), Rihand (one day), Singrauli (two days), Sipat (two days), Vindhyachal and Simhadri (one day each).
On July 14, NTPC had written to the Power Ministry informing that six of its plants with a combined capacity of 16,840 MW or 15 per cent of India’s total energy capacity from coal-fired plants had stocks of up to two days and cannot weather even a “small” disruption in supplies.
CIl, which accounts for around 80 per cent of the country’s total supply of the dry fuel, sells around 10 per cent of its yield through e-auction, mainly to smaller customers as power generation companies don’t bid aggressively owing to tariff caps.
With 60 per cent of India’s installed generation capacity using coal, its shortage has hit thermal plants across the country hard, and therefore the Coal Ministry has directed CIl to increase production from its existing mines and reduce the quantity offered in e-auction.