CUTTACK/ANGUL: Even as the National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) battles an unprecedented coal crisis, the Orissa High Court on Thursday directed Indian Railway to allot rakes for transportation of coal to the Central PSU.
The HC, in an interim order, directed the East Coast Railways to consider allotment of four rakes per day on priority basis to transport coal from Bharatpur mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) to NALCO’s plant at Angul if such a request is made by the aluminium major.
The Nalco Officers’ Association has moved the HC seeking a direction since the plant is faced with a serious crisis of coal. The next hearing of the matter would be taken up by HC on April 25. The PSU draws coal from MCL through three routes -- MGR (merry-go-round), railway rake and road transportation.
However, there has been no rake supply from railways since April 1, sources said. It is through MGR and road transport that the aluminium company is receiving around 8,000 to 9,000 tonne coal per day. This has reportedly resulted in coal crisis triggering fear of CPP collapse, sources added.
The sources in NALCO said, the 1200MW Captive Power Plant (CPP) of the company has a stock of only 85,000 tonne coal at its stockyard to meet requirement for barely four days. If this continues for a week, the units in power plant will be forced to shut down. This is likely to affect supply of power to aluminium smelter plant resulting in low aluminium production.
A senior NALCO official, on condition of anonymity, told this paper that all was well till the end of the last month. But from April 1, NALCO got around 8,000 tonnes of coal as against the daily demand of 19,000 tonne to run its 120MW units in CPP. The company requires 19,000 tonne coal to run its nine units in full load to produce 915 MW units that cater to the needs of the plant.
The official also said due to short supply of coal, the power plant has exhausted its coal stock which currently stands drastically low. However, MCL PRO Vinayak Jamwal said MCL has sufficient coal stock of around 16.5 million tonne at its pithead and there is no dearth of coal for its consumers. Railways PRO Lalit Panda refused to comment on the issue.