KORBA, Oct 7 Thermal Power Plants in the district are facing acute coal crisis, pushing them to use the reserve coal stock. The rise in coal prices in international market has played a key role in creating this crisis and has resulted in escalation of energy prices across the nation.
Even though the district houses the largest open cast coal mine of Asia, plants in power city are battling against coal crisis. The country has discontinued coal import from Indonesia, South Africa and Australia, and the plants are relying solely on the domestic production. On the other hand, coal production by Coal India has gone down due to the heavy downpour in September. Most of the mining work in these mines is done by contract labourers, employed under different private companies. Getting down in the mine and bringing coal in a risky job and with the mines turning into swamps, it got riskier. Heavy vehicles getting stuck in mud, machines flipping over and death of labourers became common incidents in district mines. Finally, the private companies started stepping back and coal production dropped low.
It needs a mention that the thermal power plants used to mix the imported Fins Coal with coal to generate more heat. However, now with discontinuation of import, these plants are solely dependent on Coal India. Consequently, they are pressuring CIL to increase the supply. While there has been a rise in coal prices in the international market, the domestic industrial production picking up post-lockdown, the demand of coal in the domestic market has increased.
Battling against all these odds, Coal India is constantly looking for fresh means to increase production. Extension of existing projects and launching some other new mining projects are underway to ensure constant adequate supply of coal, in order to meet the fuel requirements of the power sector.
On the other hand, Coal Ministry has also taken initiatives to avoid this crunch and allocated coal blocks to certain power plants in order to fulfil their fuel requirements. However, none of the plants have managed to start coal production till date.
Speaking about the coal stock in the plant, DSPM PRO Basant Kumar said that the plant is running with stock worth 3-4 days. Similar tale was told by BALCO PRO Mansi Chauhan, who said that they are somehow managing to run the plant with negligible stock.
On the other hand, SECL PRO Sanish Chandra said that South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), a flagship arm of state-run Coal India Limited (CIL), has supplied 25 per cent more coal to the power sector in the first six months of the financial year 2021-22 compared to corresponding period of last fiscal.The coal supplied by the company through e-auction has also registered an increase of about 30 percent as compared to the last financial year, the spokesperson added. He said that with the withdrawal of Monsoon, coal supply to the power plants will return to normal within next 10 days.
