Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking urgent assistance to ensure adequate availability of coal for the power generation units in the State. He urged Modi to direct the Ministry of Coal to ensure supply of 72,000 tonnes of coal daily as per the Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA) at Paradip and Visakhapatnam ports.
“Only this step can enable us to maintain uninterrupted power supply in the State and hence I solicit your personal intervention in this regard,” Stalin said in the letter.
The current daily receipt of coal for Tamil Nadu’s units is only 50,000 tonnes. Provision of sufficient coal from Talcher mines in Odisha is vital for the units in the State, he said.
Even though the coal production is sufficient to meet the increased summer demand for power, the same is not getting transported to ports due to short supply of rakes by Railways. This, in turn, has resulted in the coal stocks of the State’s generation plants reaching critical levels.
Importing coal
In the case of Tangedco, 22 railway rakes daily are required to move 72,000 tonnes of coal to Paradip and Visakhapatnam ports. However, on an average, only 14 rakes per day are currently being provided.
Due to the resultant shortage of domestic coal, Tangedco has to resort to import coal at the current historically high prices, for maintaining uninterrupted power supply. Further, the gap in power generation is also being filled by buying power at high rates in energy exchanges.
Unfortunately, sufficient quantum of power is not available in energy exchanges to meet the requirement of all buying utilities. This serious situation would significantly impact the nascent post-Covid economic recovery and needs to be immediately addressed.