The Hindu : Business : Power firms to import coal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 10, 2005

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Business

Power firms to import coal

Special Correspondent

Shortage has already forced the NTPC to shut down one unit in Talcher

NEW DELHI: In a bid to tide over the acute coal shortage, power companies like the National Thermal Power Corporation, Reliance Energy and several State electricity boards will import about 13.25 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal.

This is a sharp contrast from last year when the country relied completely on domestic production to meet requirements of the power sector.

According to the Power Minister, P. M. Sayeed, coal shortage had already forced the NTPC to shut down one 500 MW unit at the Talcher plant in Orissa.

In addition, six thermal power stations had less than four days stocks while 16 other plants had stocks of less than a week. Power generation had also been affected at several plants of NTPC.

Mr. Sayeed told newspersons here on Thursday that the Centre had granted six months extension to several State electricity boards for reorganisation or "unbundling,'' an issue that had created considerable controversy owing to the opposition of the Left parties to this proposal.

He said Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya had been granted six months extension till December 9.

Giving details of coal imports, he said MMTC had been asked by the NTPC to import 3.98 million tonnes of coal. The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board will also be importing 1.56 million tonnes coal. Other agencies importing coal will be the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, Reliance Energy and the Punjab SEB. Currently the country has 9.6 million tonnes of coal inventories though it should have 18 million tonnes of coal stocks.

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