Plan by railways to transport imported coal from ports shelved

17 Aug 2022 , 08:42 AM

Even as the dry fuel supply at power plants increased, the Indian Railways put on hold the logistics strategy created to transport imported coal from ports during the months of greatest demand.

Following a request from the power ministry for coal-fired electricity producing businesses to reduce the amount of imported coal they use overall to 5%, the decision was made.

This logistics strategy was created in April after the power ministry instructed gencos to import 10% of their needed coal for blending due to an increase in power demand.

It was agreed that state government-owned gencos and independent power plants may choose the blending percentage after evaluating the availability of domestic coal sources when coal availability at power plants increased.

The power ministry requested NTPC and Damodar Valley Corporation to reduce the blending percentage at their producing units to 5% and maintain closely monitoring the situation in another advisory on August 1.