CHENNAI: Chief minister M K Stalin on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Union ministry of coal to ensure the supply of 72,000 tonnes of coal a day as per the Fuel Supply Agreement at Paradip and Visakhapatnam ports.
“Only this step can enable us to maintain uninterrupted power supply in the state and hence I solicit your personal intervention in this regard,” the CM said in a letter to the PM, a copy of which was released to the media.
The provision of sufficient coal from Talcher mines in Odisha is vital for the thermal units in the state. But currently, the units receive only 50,000 tonnes a day. “I have been informed that even though the coal production is sufficient to meet the increased summer demand for power, the same is not getting transported to ports due to short supply of rakes by the Railways. This, in turn, has resulted in the coal stocks of our state’s generation plants reaching critical levels,” the chief minister said.
The Railways provides only 14 rakes per day on an average as against 22 rakes required to move 72,000 tonnes of daily allotted coal to Paradip and Visakhapatnam ports.
The shortage of domestic coal has forced Tangedco, the state-run power utility, to import coal at the current “historically high prices” for maintaining uninterrupted power supply. “The gap in power generation is also being filled by buying power at high rates in energy exchanges. Unfortunately, sufficient quantum of power is not available in energy exchanges to meet the requirement of all buying utilities,” said the chief minister.
