Ashok Gehlot to meet Chhattisgarh CM Baghel over coal crisis in Rajasthan

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is likely to meet Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Friday over the coal crisis in Rajasthan.

"The mines that are allocated to us (Rajasthan) by the Coal Ministry in Chhattisgarh are left with a limited quantity of coal. So to start second mines, we need Chhattisgarh government's permission and for that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will meet Chhattisgarh Chief Minister today," Rajasthan Power Minister, Bhanwar Singh Bhati told media persons here today.

Gehlot had last months reached out to Coal India Ltd and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to expedite clearance from the Baghel government to secure coal from state-owned coal mines in Chhattisgarh.

In a letter dated February 10, Gehlot wrote to Gandhi saying that Rajasthan state may suffer power crisis due to outage of 4,340 MW power plant on the ground of non-availability of Parsa East & Kanta Basan (PEKB) Coal block in Surguja, Chhattisgarh, which was allotted by Ministry of Coal, Government of India to Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (a State Government undertaking) for power generation.

"Mining from this coal block is likely to be exhausted after February 2022," Gehlot said.

Notably, both Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are Congress-ruled states.