NEW DELHI: Amid reports of a coal crisis in several parts of the country, the coal ministry on Monday said there is no shortage of coal in the country. An official, on condition of anonymity, said railways is unable to deliver the coal stock on time due to various reasons. “India is producing sufficient coal, and has enough stock but transportation is the major obstacle. Due to unusual delays by railways, many states including Punjab, Gujarat and Southern states are facing a coal crisis. Therefore, the major problem is transportation and evacuation of coal,” said the official.
Railway needs to transport 465 coal rakes per day but it has been transporting only 415 rakes, said the official, pointing to a shortage of 50 rakes per day. Therefore, states are bound to face coal crisis, which eventually may lead to power cuts in the country. However, the railway ministry rfuted this and said it had augmented the transportation of coal through railways in 2021-22 by a record 111 MT (million ton) and loaded a record 653 MT as compared to 542 MT in the previous year -- a growth of 20.4 %.
“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 % in the last 5 days as compared to the average leads of 1-10 April,” said railway ministry in a statement on Monday.
In the past few weeks, many states like Maharashtra have complained of inadequate supply to their thermal power plants. However, coal minister Pralhad Joshi on April 23 said India has 72.50 MT coal available at different sources. Out of 72.50 MT, 22.01 MT is available with thermal power plants. At the same time, the government said the total production during the 2021-22 fiscal has touched 777.23 MT compared to 716 MT during 2020-21, recording a growth of 8.55%.
However, this seems insufficient right now as the power demand has shot up manifold due to summer and resuming of industrial activities. According to the Central Electricity Authority’s latest daily coal report, the coal stock is critical at 105 out of a total 150 thermal power stations using domestic coal.