New Delhi: The ongoing power crisis in the country is likely to deepen further in the days to come as the shortage of coal has hit the thermal power plants across the country. The ban on coal mining in different parts of the country nearly for the last two years has hit the coal supply to most of the thermal power stations across the country.
A senior official of Coal India Limited said that the coalfields in northeast India are major coal suppliers for the entire country. However, the ban on coal mining in the region along with the rest of the country has led to a severe crisis with the thermal power stations resulting in the power shortage across the country.
The Karnataka Government has recently requested the Center to allot an additional four rakes of coal to the state while at present the state is getting 11 rakes. Karnataka has three thermal power stations, Raichur, Bellari and Eramras Power Station.
Although there are 8 units in Raichur Thermal Power Station, only 3 units are generating power due to coal shortage. Sources said that despite a capacity of generating 1720 MW electricity at the plant at Raichur, it is generating only 660 MW of power at present.
Apart from Karnataka, states like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Punjab are also facing a power crisis due to the shortage of coal supply to the thermal power stations. Besides, the ban on coal mining which has aggravated the situation is the fact that the coal imports to India have fallen sharply as global coal prices have risen by 40 to 50 per cent recently--the government was forced to adopt a policy shift towards clean energy due to concern over climate change and global warming.
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Seeing the crisis in power scenario in the country, some states are also indicating a sharp rise in power tariff in the days to come. The situation has turned worst in Punjab where the sixth thermal plant unit had to be closed recently due to a shortage of coal supply. Officials informed that the Goindwal Sahib thermal power generation plant is generating half of its capacity now, deepening the crisis.
Powercom CMD A. Venuprasad said that coal is not coming as per the requirement. "We needed 22 rakes of coal but got only 11. Because of this, there has been a huge gap between the production and demand for electricity."
In Assam, the state-run Assam Power Distribution Corporation Limited (APDCL) had recently warned of possible load shedding due to the power crisis.
A senior official of Coal India limited said that the coalfields in Assam and Meghalaya used to be major coal suppliers of the country. "However, the ban on coal mining for the last two years has led to the present crisis," he said, adding that the coal produced from the coal fields in the region is in high demand due to its high sulphur content.
He further said that the country requires 3,88,138 MW of power per day out of which 2,02,805 MW comes from the thermal power plants, which is about 65 percent of the country's total power requirement. He further said that although there is huge potential for hydropower generation in the northeast, the government had not been able to generate hydropower due to protests by several organizations.
Another senior official said that while the country requires 18.5 lakh tonnes of coal per day to run its thermal power plants it is getting only 17.5 lakh tonnes only, a shortage of one lakh tonnes of coal per day.
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