BHUBANESWAR: At a time when thermal power plants across the country are running short of coal amid surging demand for power, the State government on Saturday asserted that Odisha has no such problem.
"There is no such crisis in Odisha like other states where power cuts are going on for 10 to 12 hours due to shortage of coal," Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra told medipersons here.
He said that the thermal power plants operating in the State have enough coal stocks as most of the plants have assured supply linkage. While some plants have captive coal blocks others have supply linkage with Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL).
Mahapatra, who had reviewed the power position of the State at a high-level meeting here on April 25 in the wake of the sudden outage of one of the two units (2x800 MW) of NTPC's Darlipali Supper Thermal Power Station in Sundargarh district, said he had talked to the Managing Director of MCL and directed him to ensure supply adequate quantity of coal to all power plants here.
However, he parried questions on the unscheduled and erratic power cuts in different parts of the State.
Odisha, though, is facing power crunch because the Darlipali unit which supplies 440 MW broke down when the fourth unit (660 MW) of the Ib Thermal Power Station has already taken a scheduled shutdown for annual maintenance amid a surge in energy demand by 400 MW.
Shortage of rakes for transportation of coal is the major reason of coal crisis in the country. National aluminium major Nalco is facing coal shortage for its smelter plant at Angul and refinery plant at Damanjodi for non-availability of rakes. The issue was resolved following intervention of the Odisha High Court.