Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 29: All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has alleged that the power outages across the country due to coal shortage are due to the lack of coordination amongst the Coal, Railway and Power Ministries.
“Every ministry claims that they are not responsible for the present mess in the power sector. Now, they have diverted the issue and linked it to states’ inability to make timely payments to coal companies,” V K Gupta, spokesperson, All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) said.
The Central Electricity Authority monitors 173 Thermal plants across the country and 106 Thermal plants have critical coal stock as per the latest daily coal report of April 27. In the case of 150 thermal plants using domestic coal, the number of thermal plants with critical coal stock has increased from 81 to 86 in one week. In the private sector the coal plant with critical coal stock has also increased from 28 to 32. The 12 out of 15 thermal plants using imported coal are in the critical category as the cost of imported coal has risen abnormally. They are not willing to procure imported coal at escalated rates. 14 of these plants are in the private sector. In addition to this, 8 thermal plants owned by the private parties are not operating at all. There is a power crisis especially in the northern region, as Punjab,
Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand are all facing load shedding from 3 to 8 hours daily.
In the northern region 12 state sector thermal plants, out of 16 have, coal stock at a critical level. Rajasthan 6 out of 7, Uttar Pardesh 3 out of 4 state sector thermal plants have critical coal stock.
As per NRLDC data, in the northern region there is a total shortage of about 1436 lakh units. Rajasthan has a maximum shortage of 435 lakh units, followed by Haryana at 337 lakh units, Punjab at 306 lakh units, and Uttar Pradesh 295 lakh units.
In Maharashtra, six out of seven thermal plants in the state sector, and in Madhya Pradesh three out of four have critical coal stock. Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, ,Karnataka, and Tamilnadu all state sector thermal plants are having critical coal stock.
More than dozen state are imposing power cut of various duration from 2 to 12 hours, Gupta said.
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