Faced with acute power shortage in the country, the power ministry has passed the buck on coal ministry for not pulling up companies under its purview for augmenting supplies.
The power ministry has blamed the coal producing firms of not meeting the demand of coal-based thermal power plants which constitutes 53.3 per cent (76,645 Mw) of country's total power generation capacity.
"There have been slippages in power generation targets due to coal shortage. Coal companies need to ramp up coal production for meeting the requirement of coal-based thermal power plants for ideal capacity utilisation," a power ministry official said, adding imports can fill up the gap and must be explored at this point of time.
But the power generating firms have said coal shortage is a common phenomenon during monsoon and thus the power crunch. It is not really a very big problem, one of the leading power producer said.
However, if we look at the latest coal production figures released by the coal ministry, it portrays a different picture all together. Coal companies achieved the production of 31.23 million tonne in June against the 29.23 million tonne in the same month last year. But if we see the target of 34.26 million tonne, the production is about 9 per cent lower than the set target.
The power supply deficit from April, 2008 to June, 2008 stands at 14.6 per cent, which includes 9.4 per cent deficit in the northern region, 25.7 per cent in the western region, 6 per cent in the southern region, 5.7 per cent in the eastern region and 23 per cent in the north-eastern region.