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Home Minister Amit Shah believed to have helda review meeting with the ministers and top officials from the ministries of Coal, Power and Railways. The high level meeting was also attended by top officials from the States.
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The development comes as coal supply at TPPs comes under pressure due to high electricity demandThe meeting was attended by Power Minister RK Singh, Coal Minister Prahlad Joshi, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, besides the secretaries from the respective ministries.
Status of reserves
Sources said the Home Minister reviewed the status of coal reserves with thermal power plants (TPPs) and the scenario on imports. The deliberations also included a review of the electricity supply situation in the country, particularly in a dozen States including Maharashtra, UP, MP, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, etc that are witnessing higher demand amid low stocks of the key commodity.
The Power Ministry has already directed States and state gencos to start importing coal for blending at 10 per cent. Some States have started the process, but around 4-5 states are yet to float tenders. These states have been asked to flat tenders this month itself. The meeting also covered this issue, a state government official said.
A discussion was also held on the status of gas-based power plants, which are running on less than half plant load factor (PLF), the official added.
As on May 1, the domestic coal based (DCB) power plants had reserve stocks for 8 days while the imported coal based (ICB) plants had stocks for around 7.3 days. The actual stocks at 147 non-pithead power plants with a capacity of 164 gigawatts (GW) stood at 26 per cent of their normative requirement. Also 83 DCB plants and 11 ICB plants have stocks less than 25 per cent of their normative requirement.
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