Meeting on Friday to finalise transport of coal for power plants

The inter-ministerial committee comprising coal, power and railways officials will meet on October 11 to discuss and finalise rake supply plan for transporting coal to power plants for the second half of the financial year, people aware of the development told ET.

Based on the discussion, a decision on coal blending and mandate for imported coal-based power plants to run on optimum capacity could be made.

In the wake of anticipated rise in electricity demand and requirement of thermal capacities to be available for the same, the government had in April mandated imported coal-based power plants to run under section 11 of the Electricity Act till mid-October.


The government had also asked all thermal power plants to import 4% of their coal requirement till October 15.


While power demand rose between 11% and 15% in April-June on account of sweltering heat, July onwards demand has hovered between a fall of 5% year-on-year to a rise of 3.5%.

The coal stock at power plants as on October 4 was around 36 million tonnes, including 3.6 million tonnes at imported coal-based power plants.

The depletion of coal stocks in the last quarter was around 21%, which is mainly on account of seasonal drop in coal evacuation and transport and also because of a drop in wind power generation for some time in the period, which increased the use of coal-based power, according to government data and industry officials.

Whereas, the depletion of coal stocks in the first quarter, which also saw high summer demand was around 7.8%.


Former coal secretary Amrit Lal Meena had told ET in August that the ministry was expecting 34 million tonnes of coal stocks at domestic coal-based power plants by September-end. The same was recorded at 32.8 million tonnes as on September 30.