CIL fuel supply to power plants rises by 21 pc in Sept

State-owned CIL today said that supply of coal to power utilities increased by 20.6 per cent to 35.1 million tonnes (MT) in September.
The coal supply to power plants was at 29 MT in the same month of 2016, Coal India (CIL) said in a statement.
Asserting that the growth in coal supply to power plants has been "impressive at 21 per cent" in September, the world's largest coal miner said that in the last month the rake loading per day for the power plants increased by 19 per cent.
CIL loaded 192.7 rakes per day in comparison to 162 rakes per day during September last year.

The synergy between CIL and railways amounted to significant rise in rake loading per day by 30.6 rakes.
"Though there was a growth of about 21 per cent in the supply of coal to power plants, it is noted that the growth in coal-based power generation is 6.6 per cent. One of the reasons could be the decline in coal imports," the statement said.

In the recent years, there has been a regular drop in coal imports, it said adding that in August there was a decline of 24 per cent, amounting in huge savings of forex.
Coal import in August 2017 stood at 14.97 MT, against 19.75 MT in the same month of previous year.

A number of efforts were taken by the PSU in September to ensure increased supply of coal to the power sector which includes setting up of round-the-clock monitoring and control cell at its corporate office as well as in all its arms to monitor coal supply round the clock to power plants.