Only one-and-a-half days’ worth of coal supply is available for the city’s power plants due to declining supply over the past 10 days, Delhi Power Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday.
The Minister said that the current situation has arisen because wagons for delivery of coal are not being provided by the Railways.
For one day of power generation, the three coal power plants in the city — at Dadri, Jhajjar and Badarpur — are said to require 56,000 metric tonnes (MT) of coal.
Normally, 15 days’ worth of coal stock is required to be maintained at the power plants, said Mr. Jain. This means that the three plants together should have 840,000 MT of coal reserves.
However, government records show that since June 19 there has been an almost continuous decline in coal stocks, coming down to 91,129 MT on Wednesday.
On May 26 this year, the reserve stock of coal at the three power stations had come down to just 35,100 MT — half-a-days’ worth of supply.
‘Power cuts possible’
The Delhi government has written to the Minister of State for Power, R. K, Singh, asking him to “personally intervene and take up the matter with the Railways for providing rakes/wagons on priority.”
“The city may witness power shut downs if the present situation does not improve,” said Mr. Jain.
Published - June 28, 2018 01:34 am IST
