The Power Ministry and Railways held talks to deal with the coal-supply crisis. The deliberations were led by Power Minister RK Singh and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Besides, Power Secretary Alok Kumar, Coal Secretary AK Jain and senior officials from Power, Coal and Railways were present. Representatives from the coal and power PSUs and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra also joined virtually, said the Power Ministry in a statement.

Rake management

“Singh urged all stakeholders at the Centre and State-level to work hand-in-hand for unhindered power supply. He urged power gencos to own freight rakes under the scheme of Ministry of Railways to deal with logistic constraints in coal supply,” the Power Ministry added.

The issues discussed included increasing operational efficiency for loading and unloading of coal, increasing percentage of rakes allotment for power sector, and other logistics issues.

Meanwhile, the Railways, on Monday, said that to ensure swift supply of coal across power plants, additional trains and rakes have been initiated to augment transportation of coal.

The Railways has ramped up the coal transportation, resulting in 32 per cent more coal freight loading between September 2021 and March 2022. There has also been an increase in 10 per cent freight by efficiently mobilising resources after April 2022, it said in a statement.

In FY22, Railways augmented the transportation of coal by a record 111 million tonnes (MT) and loaded a record 653 MT, compared to 542 MT in the previous year, a growth of 20.4 per cent.

In April 2022 , Railways took many steps to prioritise the loading of coal to power sector, which has led to an increase in supply of coal of more than 10 per cent within a week’s time.

The movement of coal trains has been prioritised and trains are being intensively monitored during the entire cycle, from loading to movement, and finally unloading. Through this prioritization and monitoring the transit time of coal trains to long distance Power has been reduced significantly by 12-36 per cent for critical power plants, it said.

“Railways has prioritised the movement of coal to long distance Power houses as well which is reflected in the fact that the average lead of coal trains has increased by 7 per cent in the last 5 days as compared to the average leads of 1st to 10th April,” said Railways.

Despite this increase in the average lead of coal trains the time taken between two successive loading of the same rake for these stocks has reduced by 10 per cent, it added.

Deteriorating coal supplies amidst rising power demand

The meeting comes at a time when coal supplies are lagging, while power demand is increasing. For perspective, on April 24, the maximum demand met during the day stood at 186.92 gigawatts (GW), whereas on the same day, the peak shortage recorded was 2,648 megawatts (MW).

Similarly, on the same day (Sunday), the coal and lignite based generation stood at 3,432 million units, while energy shortage was recorded at 56.04 MU. Likewise, due to shortage of coal and lignite, the outages impacted power units with 8,430 MW capacity.

On April 24, 86 DCB plans and 12 imported coal based (ICB) power plants had critical supplies (less than 25 per cent of the normative requirement). DCB plans had stocks for just about 8.2 days.

Four days back, on April 20, the peak power demand met during the day was 197.28(G) and on the same day, peak shortage recorded was 7,681 M), among the highest for April. Similarly, coal-based generation stood at 3,432 MU, but energy shortage was also among the highest for the month at 105.24 MU. Likewise, coal stocks at DCB and ICB plants was at 7.9 and 8.9 days, respectively with 86 DCB plants and 11 ICB plants having critical stocks.

comment COMMENT NOW