Govt achieves feat of optimum coal supply at power units, thanks to Rlys

Record 425 rake per day for power sector during 2018-19

The government, on the back of improved rake availability, has achieved the feat of optimum coal supply at power units after a gap of 600 days.

It recently declared no power units in India had critical coal stocks (of less than seven days). 

As of March 21, the average stock at 126 power plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) was seen at 29.7 million tonnes (MT), enough to feed power plants in the country for 17 days.

The credit for this goes to the Indian Railways, which improved rake availability for the power sector. The railways have handled about 45 MT of incremental coal traffic in this fiscal year till now.

“Average rake availability to the coal sector in 2018-19 was at an all-time high of 425 rakes per day till February, compared to 387 rakes per day in 2017-18. By the middle of March, we have handled an additional 45 MT of coal traffic,” said an official close to the development.

Average rake availability increased to around 480 rakes in March. 

According to the latest data available with the railways, coal and coke traffic, put together, has increased to 20.17 per cent so far in 2018-19 to 648.82 MT, compared to 539.92 MT last financial year.

This has led to increase in revenue from coal and coke traffic by 35.69 per cent to Rs 65,652 crore. 

A senior government official said the reason for improvement in coal traffic was the monitoring and co-ordination among the railways, coal and power ministries. 

“A high-powered committee consisting of the secretaries to the power and coal ministries and member (traffic) of the railways was meeting after every 15 days to monitor the availability of coal to the power sector,” he said.

The improvement in coal availability comes after two years of sub-par supply. The coal stocks were as low as of two-three days at some power units.

The coal deficit started in September 2017, touching a low of six days of average coal availability with power units in October 2017. Close to 11,000 MW was under forced outage owing to low coal stocks. In December 2018, it improved slightly to 10 days. 

During last year’s summer, the country’s peak power demand touched a record high of 170,000 Mw. However, power units across country faced coal shortages, with some of them having a day’s coal stock. 

In the current fiscal year, the ministry of power in an internal note had acknowledged that coal shortage hit power generation during the year and coal supply still was a sore point. The ministry said the sector would need 615 MT of coal and 288 rakes per day to meet the demand. 

For the coming fiscal year, the power ministry has envisaged a similar demand.