Telangana has enough coal

Hyderabad: Telangana is unlikely to experience coal shortage. A possible crisis has been avoided as the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has come to the rescue of the State by making special arrangements to meet the demand for coal to generate power of 7,510 MW.

The SCCL increased coal production and it is expected to touch 2 lakh metric tonnes (MTs) per day from November first week. Currently, the coal production from the Singareni Collieries is about 1.75 lakh MTs; by the end of October, it would go up to 1.9 lakh MTs.

The power utilities feel that the demand for electricity will increase as the government is providing round-the-clock free power to the farm sector. The State requires 95,000 MT of coal a day to generate power in all thermal units in the State. At present, the thermal plants have coal reserves to meet requirements for a few days as supply was affected during the past ten days. Officials said that it was for the first time in the last six years that the coal reserves had dipped drastically.

Authorities said that SCCL Chairman and Managing Director N Sridhar instructed all 11-area coal production unit in-charges to enhance the production with immediate effect ensuring no shortage of coal to all thermal units run by the Telangana State GENCO. Since the thermal projects are located within 50-km limits of the coal mines, the officials said that there will be no delay in transportation in delivering the coal stocks to the project sites in Telangana.

The SCCL was also making arrangements to supply coal to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra as per the MoU entered with these States, officials said that the company was strictly following the instruction of the Union Ministry of Power to shift coal reserves to the needy States and also help Telangana to get required coal for power generation.