Zero coal stock at RTPS, situation 'critical'

With the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) reeling under acute coal shortage, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has sought the Centre to ensure adequate coal supply to Karnataka. The RTPS, with a capacity of 1,720 MW, presently has zero coal stock.

In a letter to Coal Minister Piyush Goyal, Kumaraswamy has cited that the Western Coal Fields (WCF) - a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd (CIL) - has short supplied about 6 lakh MT of coal this year against the Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA) quantity.

This has resulted in zero coal stock in RTPS. Kumaraswamy has urged the Ministry of Coal to make good the deficit by supplying coal from Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) for sustainable power generation in Karnataka.

Additional Chief Secretary (Energy) Ravi Kumar told DH that RTPS is in a "critical" situation.

"Presently, there is only 2,924 MT of coal available in RTPS as against the requirement of 23,000 MT per day. It is in a critical situation. Yesterday (Tuesday) the chief secretary, too, wrote to the Centre to ramp up supplies from MCL. The WCF has not even met 50% of our requirement. Though we are getting coal from Singareni Collieries Company Ltd and MCL, it is not sufficient to run RTPS in its full capacity," Kumar said.

He, however, ruled out any load shedding at this juncture. "There will be no load shedding for now. We are playing around with whatever coal and water (hydel power) we have. But if the situation continues, then the power supply is also likely to be hit," Kumar added.