Railways to provide additional coal to NTPC's 2 plants

Indian Railways has assured state-owned NTPC of supplying it with additional coal for improving power generation at its stations in Farakka in West Bengal and Kahalgaon in Bihar.

The additional supply will help improve the generation level at both the stations to about 500 MW. They have been producing power at lower capacity due to coal shortage.

Sources said that at a meeting of senior officials of the two sides, Indian Railways has assured NTPC of additional movement of coal to the plants.

The railways will make arrangements for moving two more coal rakes a day to the stations, they added. A rake of coal roughly equals to 4,800 tonnes.

The Farakka and Kahalgaon stations have total installed capacity of 1,600 MW and 2,340 MW respectively.

These two power projects faced critical coal shortage in the past due to transportation hurdles from the Rajmahal mines allotted for these plants, thereby leading to low electricity generation.

Last year, the government gave approval for implementing the Rajmahal Opencast Expansion Project, from 10.5 million to 17 million tonnes per annum with an estimated capital investment of Rs 153.82 crore.

NTPC, on its part, has taken several initiatives to ensure increased availability of coal by buying it from different mines of Coal India, beside e-auctions and imports.

The installed capacity of NTPC is over 32,194 MW. It operates over 27 power stations across the country.

Currently, over 17,000 MW capacity is under construction at 17 projects in 12 states and NTPC plans to become a 75 GW company by 2017.