Power plants around Delhi don't face coal shortage: Goyal

Power plants around Delhi don't face coal shortage: Goyal

New Delhi: Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal addresses a press conference on

New Delhi, May 30 (IANS) Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that the power plants around Delhi do not faces any coal shortage as the Railways and the Coal Ministry are working together with all the discoms to ensure sufficient adequate coal availability.

"The Coal Ministry and the Railways Ministry are working together with all the discoms to ensure sufficient adequate coal availability throughout the country and no one needs to worry. Any speculation on that behalf is completely baseless and unfounded," Goyal, who is also the Coal Minister told reporters here.

He also said that the supply of coal rakes to Delhi has shown a significant improvement in last few days.

"Demand for coal was almost was very very low for Dadri all through last year. So Delhi was not consuming the amount of the power that they needed or was eligible from Dadri plant," he said.

He said that the Dadri was working on about three rake per day supply last year because Delhi was not procuring power, but when the power demands went up, they increased their requisition to five rakes and then to seven rakes per day.

Goyal's remarks came against the backdrop of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal raising, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lt Governor Anil Baijal, the coal shortage in the Dadri I and II, Jhajjar and Badarpur thermal power stations, which, he said, did not have stocks "sufficient for even one-day full generation".

Goyal said that on May 23, eight rakes of coal, on May 24 three rakes, on May 25 seven rakes, on May 26 six rakes, on May 27 eight rakes and on May 28 seven rakes have been supplied to the Dadri plant.

"So it was continuously supplying coal, despite the fact that last year they have been taking only three rakes and then we have to ramp it up to seven to eight rakes per day in the short period of time.

"We are almost giving double to Dadri than they bought last year," he said.

Hitting out at Kejriwal, Goyal said, "The Delhi Chief Minister has never written a letter to me and has nor come to meet me. In the Power Ministry, he has said that they have adequate infrastructure."

He also asserted that for both -- coal ministry and for railways -- it is not a 'switch on and switch off' thing that overnight you say we want more rakes and the system can gear up and supply rakes overnight.

"I hope that all the states will plan their requirement better, ensuring timely payment for the coal that they procure and booking the rates by the railways in time so that there isn't any complaint of shortage in future," he said.

He also said that the Badarpur power plant was never running for most of the year but suddenly a demand came up and and currently they are supplying one and half rakes a day in last one week.

He said that similarly, the Indira Gandhi plant in Jhajjar had a very small requisition both from Haryana and Delhi until recently. "And once the requisition has come, then we are supplying three rakes of coal per day and if the demands goes up, we shall provide accordingly."

The Coal Minister also advised the Delhi government to use the tolling policy of the Coal Ministry so that it can buy the power from the discoms at lower rates as the coal for the Dadri and the Jhajjar plant has to be trasported from long distances which adds to the cost of the power.

--IANS

aks/vd

(This story was auto-published from a syndicated feed. No part of the story has been edited by The Quint.)