Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking allocation of the Mandakini-A coal block of Talcher Coal Field at Angul in Odisha to the APGenco Thermal power plants.
‘Fallout of bifurcation’
In the letter, Mr. Reddy said that prior to bifurcation of the State, the linkage quantities, particularly the supplies from M/s SCCL, had been adjusted between the thermal stations of the combined Andhra Pradesh to run the units as per the requirement. After bifurcation, since SCCL mines had been entirely given to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh lost its share in the coal reserves. As a result, Andhra Pradesh was entirely dependent on the coal linkages from other States, he added.
Energy security
“This has compromised the energy security of the new State of A.P. and the 24 x 7 power supply,” Mr. Reddy, as per a press release, said.
The Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) was given one coal block in Madhya Pradesh and one in Chhattisgarh of 5 MMTA each for commercial purpose. The logistics cost from these blocks makes coal unviable for use by A.P.
Capacity addition
“APGenco is adding an additional capacity of 1,600 MW from March 2020” he added.
