Coal crisis: Cos urged to own freight rakes to rev up supply
NEW DELHI: The power ministry on Monday asked state as well as private electricity generation companies (gencos) to purchase freight rakes in addition to the ones already being augmented and supplied by the Centre. The direction was issued because there seems to be no end to the country’s coal shortage which is curtailing electricity generation at thermal power plants leading to power outages in several states, despite the railway ministry adding more trains, rakes and laying additional tracks to increase coal supply and its turnaround time.
“Union power minister RK Singh urged the power Gencos to own freight rakes under the scheme of the ministry of railways to deal with logistic constraints in coal supply,” a senior minister official said requesting anonymity.
The request to gencos was placed during a meeting held between Singh and Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday to discuss shortterm and long-term strategies to deal with the country’s increasing power demand this summer. The issues that were discussed during the high-level meeting included increasing operational efficiency for loading and unloading of coal, increasing the percentage of rakes allotment for the Power sector, and other logistics issues. States such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra also joined the meeting virtually as they either have coal mines or run generating companies which are facing severe coal shortages leading to restricted power generation.
On April 24 (Sunday), India met a peak power demand of 186,915 MW, while there was a shortage of 2,648 MW. To be sure, the peak power demand of every day is released a day later by the power ministry. The highest ever peak power demand was 200,570 MW at 12:01 hours on July 7, 2021. This year, that record is set to be broken with the ministry projecting a peak electricity demand of 215,000 MW. The railways ministry, on Monday, said it has ramped up coal transportation, resulting in 32% more coal freight loading between September 2021 and March 2022. There has also been an increase in 10% freight by efficiently mobilising resources after April 2022, it said in a statement.
“In 2021-22, Railways augmented the transportation of coal by a record 111 million tonnes (MT) and loaded a record 653 MT, compared to 542 MT in the previous year, a growth of 20.4%,” the ministry said.
However, even these efforts do not seem to bridge the gap between the high demand of coal at power stations and the supply.
Data from the CEA showed that as on April 21), as many as 85 of 150 power plants running on domestic coal had critically low coal levels. Then of the 15 plants designed on imported coal, 12 were marked “critical”. Another eight plants were not in operation due to the crisis.