The Hindu Business Line : NTPC to set up captive coal mines

AS part of measure to make it less dependent on Coal India Ltd (CIL), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has decided to set up captive coal mines to produce at least 50 million tonnes (mt) of non-coking coal by 2012 when the corporation will require about 225 mt of power grade coal to generate about 46,000 MW of thermal power.

NTPC's current annual coal requirement is about 108 mt, including about 4 mt of imported coal. The corporation has asked CIL to augment its production to ensure uninterrupted supply of coal to NTPC's existing and new thermal power projects to be completed before the end of the Eleventh Plan.

Talking to newspersons here on the sidelines of an international conference on `Power for emerging east", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Chairman of NTPC, Mr C. P. Jain, said the corporation had plans to make huge investments in the eastern and north-eastern regions to augment its generation capacity.

Mr Jain said the detailed project reports for two new thermal projects were being prepared. Each project with a rated capacity of 1,980 MW would be set up at North Karanpura in Jharkhand and at Barr in Bihar. An additional 500 MW capacity would be added to the Farakka supper thermal power plant. This apart, applications had been submitted to the Union Ministry of Coal for new coal linkages for two more thermal projects, each with a capacity of 3,000 MW. One such project would be set in Chhattisgarh and another in Orissa.

Highlighting the need for a rational energy policy at the national level, he pointed out that the Central Electricity Regulatory Authority was allowing SEBs to sell power at higher rates to the power deficit States after purchasing the same power from NTPC at a subsidised tariff, which was much lower than their selling price.

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