Coal stocks at power plants increased by 33 pc to prevent outages in rainy season

New Delhi: The coal stocks at domestic coal-based Thermal Power Plants is currently at 44.46 million tonnes (MT) which is sufficient to meet the requirements for 18.5 days as per the present level of consumption, the Ministry of Coal said on Monday.

This stock position is 33 per cent higher than what it was at the same time last year, while the production of coal during the April-June quarter of this year has recorded a robust double-digit growth of 10.58 per cent.

The Coal Ministry said that keeping in view the monsoon effect on coal production, as much as 98.67 MT stock availability has been ensured at the pithead of mines (including coal in transit) as of 30th June 2024 which is 33.5 per cent higher over last year’s position.

Currently, the stock availability at the thermal power plants is 68 per cent of the normative requirement which was about 50 per cent during the same period of last year. During FY 23-24, too, there was no scarcity of coal at the domestic coal-based plants.

As on June 29, there is also an increase in the number of rakes/days by 10.54 per cent over the same period of last year, it is thus evident that adequate stock is available to meet the monsoon requirements of all domestic coal-based thermal plants.

Further Coal, Railways and Power ministries are closely coordinating to ensure adequate availability of coal.