Declaring that there is no shortage of coal in the country, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that none of the thermal power plants in the country have reported any loss of generation due to shortage of coal during the last fiscal.
He told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that, as on April 21, the coal stock at power plants was at more than 37 million tonnes (MT), which was sufficient for operating the plants for about 25 days.
"Further, none of the power plants have reported critical/super critical coal stock position," he said.
Noting that there is some shortage in availability of domestic gas, the minister said: "Enhanced availability of domestic coal has offset shortage of gas and has resulted in growth in overall thermal generation from coal and gas based power plants to 7.4 percent during the year 2015-16 as well as reduction of 10.6 MT import of coal by power sector."
He also said the government has sanctioned a scheme for utilising the gas-based power generation capacity in the last and current fiscals.
"The scheme envisages supply of imported spot RLNG (regassified liquefied natural gas) to the stranded gas based plants as well as plants receiving domestic gas at subsidized rates,selected through a reverse e-bidding process," Goyal said.
--IANS
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