By Vinod Gupta
CHANDIGARH : 15 out of 27 thermal plants in the northern region have less than 4 days coal stock and the worst affected are Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
According to Central Electricity Authority latest report 4 out of 5 thermal plants of Haryana and 9 out of 12 thermal plants of Uttar Pradesh have coal stock of three days and less. According to sources thermal units of Haryana are being run on the basis of hand to mouth coal stock. Senior HPGCL officials including Managing Director of HPGCL and Chief Engineer Fuel are camping at Nagpur to monitor the dispatch of coal in this crucial election month.
As per CEA report Khedar thermal plant has nil stock, Panipat thermal has stock of one day and Yamuna Nagar thermal has stock of 2 days. Even NTPC jhajjar thermal plant has coal sufficient for 1 day only. Jhajjar one unit and Panipat thermal’s one unit are under forced outage due to coal shortage as per NRLDC daily report. The power shortage in Haryana is 70 lakh units and the total supply is around 1537 lakh units. The problem may aggrivate in case coal supply is not improved in next two days.
In Pun jab one 210 MW unit of Ropar thermal plant and one unit at Lehra Mohabatt are down due to coal shortage. Ropar and Bhatinda thermal plants have coal stock of 4 days and Lehra Mohabatt thermal plant has 6 days coal stock.
PANEM has already curtailed the coal supply to the thermal plants of Punjab. Punjab Government and PANEM officials are holding a meeting today at Chandigarh to sort out the various issues. According to sources the meeting is likely to continue tomorrow also. Talwandi Sabo thermal unit is also closed due to coal shortage.
In Uttar Pradesh 9 out 0f 12 thermal plants have less than three days stock and the units are virtually running on nil coal stock. Obra, Parichha, Dadri, Rihand, Singrauli , Tanda have 2 days coal stock while HarduaGanj, Unchhahar and Apapara “C” have one day coal stock.