Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam today urged Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu to provide adequate railway rakes to ensure uninterrupted supply of coal to a power plant in the state.
The NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy Company Limited (NTECL), a Central-State joint venture coal fired thermal power plant at Vallur near here is experiencing coal shortage, Panneerselvam told Suresh Prabhu in a letter today.
"Although the (NTECL Vallur) plant is capable of generating 1500 MW at present, it is restricted due to short supply of coal from the Mahanadi Coal field, Talcher in Odisha due to the limited availability of empty railway rakes at Talcher coal mines," he said.
All the three units (3x500 MW) of NTECL have declared commercial operation and Tamil Nadu has been allocated about 1045 MW from this plant.
Stating that he was "given to understand that the Ministry of Railways is not able to provide enough number of empty railway rakes at Talcher Coal Mines," Panneerselvam said as a result "one of the units at Vallur is always under shutdown."
"Augmentation of coal supply to NTECL plant would greatly help Tamil Nadu to meet the state's power demand [now] during summer."
Requesting the Minister's personal intervention, he urged him to instruct the authorities to arrange for adequate supply of railway rakes to ensure uninterrupted supply of coal to NTECL Vallur power plant to manage the peak power demand.
