New Delhi: As many parts of the country
continued to face disruptions in electricity supply due to
coal shortage, the government has swung into action to resolve
the issue of power outages "within 48 hours".
"Within 48 hours all problems would be solved," Coal
Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters here.
He said the Coal Ministry would make efforts to provide
more coal to state-run NTPC, whose many plants are running
below capacity levels due to coal shortage.
Jaiswal also said his ministry would make efforts to
provide more coal to NTPC.
"We will try to make available more coal to NTPC through
e-auction," he said. Details about the same was not available
immediately. e-auction is a process whereby coal is sold at
market price.
The government yesterday had asked coal firms, including
the biggest producer CIL, to step up coal supply to power
stations to ensure that power generation was uninterrupted.
Country's largest power producer NTPC had said on Monday
that coal shortage is hurting the electricity generation. As
per estimates, coal shortage is impacting over 4,000 MW of
NTPC's power generation capacity.
Earlier in the day, Power Secretary P Uma Shankar said
that Ministries of Power and Coal would be meeting soon to
deliberate on the issue of fuel supplies for power projects.
"e-auction (of coal) should be resorted to after they
(producers) meet the requirement of the power sector," Shankar
said at a FICCI event here.
The Power Ministry has asked the Coal Ministry to provide
coal supplies for power projects before going ahead with
e-auction. Shankar also said that Coal Secretary has given
assurance that Coal India will be able to spare coal, provided
the developer picks the dry fuel directly from the mine.
A major chunk of India's power generation is from thermal
plants that use coal as the main fuel.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 22:38