Centre prepares detailed plan to address coal supply issues

To address concerns over the shortage of coal in thermal power plants, the Centre said it has a detailed plan to ensure its smooth supply.

Minister for Coal and Railways Piyush Goyal and Minister for Power R K Singh held a meeting here on Wednesday on the issue and prepared a detailed plan to supply the dry fuel immediately.

The ministers also spoke to states where supply is less and promised them to address the issue immediately.

The issue is being addressed in a co-coordinated manner by the three ministries concerned - power, coal and railways - a power ministry statement said.

There were fears of power outages in the festive season because of critical coal shortage at power plants, especially when spot power price touched a peak of over Rs 10 per unit earlier this week.

Earlier, several states, including Karnataka, had urged the Centre to increase supply to avoid disruption.

According to a Central Electricity Authority (CEA) report, as many as 21 plants had coal for less than four days while five had stocks for less than a week, as on October 17.

The CEA monitors coal stock situation at 112 thermal power plants.