Hyderabad: Amid the growing power crisis in the country, Telangana is better placed with coal reserves that would last for the next 10 days, the Telangana Today reported citing officials.
There will be no shortage of coal in the near future in Telangana as the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has restored its operations to capacity levels after the recent rains in the state.
Energy Minister G Jagdish Reddy was quoted by the Telangana Today as saying: “The state has thermal units with an installed capacity of 3,440 MW, which requires around 30,000-32,000 tonnes of coal every day. The TSGENCO has about 3.8 lakh tonnes of coal stocks available at its disposal at present. The NTPC-Ramagundam which also contributes to the State’s power supplies also has around 1.2 lakh tonnes of coal reserves which will last four-five days, which makes the situation very comfortable”
It is to be noted that there is an increasing demand for coal from a few states at present. on October 8 Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote to Prime Minister Modi, seeking urgent intervention to solve the power crisis. In his letter, Jagan Mohan Reddy stated that ” demand for power has gone up by 15% in the last six months and by 20% in the last one month. Jagan Mohan Reddy put forth four demands from the Centre, including diverting 20 % of coal rakes which he said could be directed towards AP’s thermal stations from the railways and coal ministry.”
Seeking help from the Centre, the AP chief minister put forth a few demands such as deepwater well gas available with ONGC and Reliance may be supplied on an emergency basis to the 2300 MW non-working gas plants in AP. The deficit of nearly 500 MW from Central Generating stations due to plant maintenance can be bridged by reviving the plants at the earliest or the maintenance be postponed.
Jagan further stated that The Central Generating Stations have also not been able to supply more than 75% of their 40 MU/day capacity. In order to absorb energy from the 8000 MW of renewable energy capacity, the Andhra Pradesh State has not been executing contracts with coal-based plants, and consequently, it depends heavily on market purchases for sourcing its shortfall energy.”
“It has become increasingly difficult for us to meet the grid demand and the circumstances are pushing us towards load shedding. We require your urgent intervention in this hour of crisis” remarked the chief minister.
Similarly, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had penned a letter to the Prime minister on October 9 seeking urgent intervention from the Centre to resolve the impending power crises in the capital. In the letter, Kejriwal stated that “Delhi could face a power crisis. I am personally keeping a close watch over the situation. We are trying our best to avoid it. In the meanwhile, I wrote a letter to Hon’ble PM seeking his personal intervention” as reported by NDTV.
However, in its response to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the ministry of coal quashed the former’s claim, stating “Coal availability is sufficient, and that the “fear” of disruption in power supply is “unfounded”. Furthermore, the ministry went on to claim that coal-based power generation has grown by 24% this year and added that despite heavy rains, Coal India Ltd supplied more than 225 MT Coal to Power Sector.”