State govt-run power firms hit by huge cost of transporting their own coal

Freight cost comes to Rs 1000 per tonne; Firms submit plan to offer some coal from their mines in Chhattisgarh to power units in that state

State public sector undertakings are paying a heavy price for transporting coal from the blocks allocated to them in remote areas of other states.

Power companies owned by the governments of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat, for instance, have been alloted blocks on coal-rich Chhattisgarh. These companies excavate about 48.6 million tonnes (MT) of coal a year. The cost of transporting the fuel to their end-use plants works out to a staggering Rs 4,860 crore.

The freight cost comes to be around Rs 1,000 per tonne. The average distance of the end-use plants of the three companies from the blocks is