Coal at power units rises to 10-days cover: Minister

Stocks at thermal plants rise to 21 MT

Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, 29/10/2019: A view of the NTPC Simhadri Thermal Power Station, in Visakhapatnam on October 29, 2019. BHEL will launch work on 25 MW floating solar power plant at Simhadri Thermal Power Station at a cost of Rs.100 crore. The plant will be installed in the raw water reservoir of NTPC at Deepanjalinagar near Parawada. Photo: K.R. Deepak / The Hindu

Coal stock at thermal power plants improved to 20.98 million tonnes (MT) on December 5, which is sufficient to run the plants for an average of 10 days, Power Minister R.K. Singh said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. on Thursday.

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) monitors fuel stocks of 136 coal-based thermal power plants with total generation capacity of more than 166 GW.

Coal stock available with power plants monitored by the CEA was 41.6 MT as on November 30, 2020, which declined to 31.9 MT on March 31, he wrote. Also, with increased power generation and some interruption in supply of coal by companies mainly due to heavy rains and increase in prices of imported coal, stock at the plants slumped to about 11.4 MT as on September 30, 2021, he said.

Subsequently, with the efforts of the Ministry of Power, Ministry of Coal, CEA, Coal India Ltd. and the Railways, coal stock had started improving, he added.