Coal crisis hits Talcher super thermal power station

Talcher, June 9 (UNI) The 3000 MW Talcher super thermal power station, a unit of NTPC at Kaniha near here has dipped into a critical stage following record low coal stock at its stock yard.

NTPC sources said the plant has a record low of coal stock in its stock yard. The slide down started from May one with the stock reduced to two lakh tonne which started falling below one lakh tonne.

Sensing trouble, the Director (Operation) from NTPC corporate office Chandan Roy rushed to Talcher to hold talks with top MCL officials on the enhancement of coal supply to the beleaguered power plant.

Sources said the MCL agreed to NTPC demand to supply 55,000 tonne of coal per day provided there was no disruption in coal movements at Talcher coalfield, main supplier of coal to NTPC-Kaniha plant.

It also asked NTPC not to depend on MCL solely and explore other sources of coal at other CIL companies to meet the crisis situation, MCL Director (Technical) V K Jain said. The MCL also proposed to NTPC to lift coal by road from Talcher, 30 kms away which was also agreed by NTPC.

But later it was found impractical since the transport route involves six small and narrow villages. The MCL has agreed to provide 44,000 tonne from Talcher and another 11,000 tonne from IB valley coalfield to NTPC plant through rail and Merry Go Round system.

Lingaraj open cast mine at Talcher is the linkage mine of Kaniha plant. The problem started when the daily production in the mine started coming down from 35,000 tonnes to 2,000 tonne due to unsafe condition in mine, large scale discontentment among the officials and faulty planning.

According to NTPC officials there had been no improvement of coal supply from MCL even after high level talks between MCL and NTPC officials to resolve the issue.

MCL claimed that lack of wagon supply from railway had triggered of short supply of coal to the NTPC plant.This apart there had been disruption of coal production in four out of six mines due to agitations by local villagers.

Senior officials maintained that notwithstanding its low coal output, supply could be augmented as the coalfield has a stock of nearly 40 lakh tonnes at various pit heads but the transport routes are necessary to supply the coal.

The Kaniha plant, which requires 48,000 to 50,000 tonne of coal daily to run its six 500 MW units, is apprehending a shut down of units if the crisis continued for some more days.

UNI