Centre should bear additional cost of coal import – AIPEF

Centre should bear additional cost of coal import – AIPEF

Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 4,2023

All Indian Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) a national body of engineers, termed the September 1 directive issued by the power ministry as “an attempt by the central government to put undue pressure on states” and reiterated its demand that since the coal crisis is not the fault of the state power generating houses, the additional cost of coal imports should be borne by the Union government.

The Union Ministry of Power has asked all the thermal generating stations   to import 4 per cent coal  by weight of their total requirements  up to  March, 2024. The gap between coal consumption by domestic coal based plants and supply is 2 lakhs tonnes per day  because of infrastructure problems and constraints  being faced by railways.

The All India Power Engineers Federation  has demanded that the central government should pay the   price of coal imported by the state power generating companies. Putting additional load of imported coal on the thermal power plants of the state is not appropriate, said V K Gupta spokesperson

All India Power Engineers Federation  in a statement issued here today said that the order issued by the Central Government’s Ministry of Power clearly states that the main reason for the difficulty in reaching coal from coal mines to thermal power stations is constraint of Railways. There is a shortage of rakes and due to the logistic constraint of the Railways, adequate coal is not reaching the thermal power houses. The Federation also said that if coal is unable to reach the thermal power plants due to railway constraints, then it will be more difficult to reach the imported coal which will have to be brought from the port by Railway.

V K Gupta said that India’s peak demand  during any time of the day has touched  to a record 243.9 gigawatts (GW) on August 31,  exceeding available capacity by 7.3 GW. Driest August in more than a century sends power generation surging to a record 162.7 billion kilowatt hours. Coal’s share in power output rose to 66.7 percent in August, the highest for the month in six years

In case the coal is imported by Discoms the ultimate loser will be the consumers and this is totally unfair.In a situation, the price of imported coal should be borne by the central government.