Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting on June 9 to discuss the continued shortage of coal, the poor performance of the power sector and the ways and means to give a big thrust to the infrastructure sector in the remaining part of the XI Plan.
The meeting was earlier scheduled for May 19 but was postponed in view of some council of ministers not being present on that day.
The rising shortfall in coal production, which in turn has impacted the power generation programme, has invited the attention of the Prime Minister. Even worse is the fact that Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh had recently written to the Prime Minister pointing out that nearly 50,000 tonnes of coal was lying at the coal pitheads for want of evacuation, debunking the argument put forward by the Coal Ministry that delay in environmental clearances had impacted coal production.
Another area of concern that would be discussed at length during the meeting will be the poor performance of the power sector. Although, the XI Plan had targeted 78,000 MW, the target was later revised to 68,000 MW and it is expected that this would only touch around 60,000 MW at best. The Power Ministry has also tried to put the blame on the Environment Ministry for the shortfall in meeting the capacity addition.
Dr. Singh and his team would discuss and review the coal and power situation and also the steps to be taken to deal with it. As the domestic coal production would be around 648 million tonnes, the shortfall will be met through import of 114 million tonnes in the current fiscal.
