The Hindu Business Line : Increase coal storage capacity in thermal plants: Ministry

THE Ministry of Coal has advised all thermal power generating stations to provide greater storage capacity in anticipation of shortages in fuel supplies.

Speaking at the 228th meeting of Coal Linkages here today, Mr A.P.V. N. Sarma, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Coal, said, "Powerhouses need more redundancy in coal storage to meet shortages in the foreseeable future."

The Ministries of Power, Coal and Railways attended the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Coal, Mr Pradip Kumar.

Several thermal power stations, both in the State and Central sectors, complained about the inadequacy of supplies and the shortfall in supplies as against the linkages.

Many of the power stations have pointed to the Indian Railways' inability to provide wagons for transporting the coal.

However, the Railways has responded saying that part of wagons shortage was on account of poor unloading facilities available at the power station sites.

Besides, some electricity boards were using the wagons as storage facilities to offset lack of coal warehousing capacity.

This in turn affected the wagon turnaround time, thereby creating wagon shortages.

Mr A.K. Roy, Executive Director of Indian Railways, said: "Railways will allow wagons to be used as storage facilities even at the cost of power shutdowns." Mr Roy said that among the stations where the unloading facilities were inadequate included Panipat thermal power station.

He asked the Harayana State Electricity Board to make investments to expedite the unloading process. This would allow for faster wagon turnaround time, he added.

Some of the coal stations also wanted their linkages altered from raw coal to washed coal. However, Coal India representatives at the meeting said that such a shift was not immediately possible.

With the increase in washery capacity, CIL would be in position to provide larger amounts of washed coal.

CIL, its subsidiaries and the Indian Railways also raised the issue of payment overdues. CIL said that so far despite the payment overdues, they had not restricted fuel supplies.

However, both CIL and Railways said that such a situation would not be allowed to continue.

The meeting also raised the issue of the low quality of coal available from the domestic collieries.

Accordingly, all the thermal stations have sought blending of both domestic and imported coal so that the quality of the coal could be standardised.

Domestic thermal stations currently require coal with a calorific value of about 3,000 kilocalories per kg.

The actual values were lower in view of the high ash and impurities content, thermal power station managers complained.

Besides, thermal stations, cement companies' officials also attended the meting. Cement units currently have signed up for a linkage of about one million tonnes for the second quarter of the current financial year.