Transport hurdles stalling power production at NTPC plants

Power Secretary H S Brahma today said, power generation at state-run NTPC's two thermal power projects have been stalled for over a month due to transportation bottlenecks.

"Kahalgaon and Farakka thermal power plants are not working for the past 45 days due to Railways bottlenecks," he told reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI event here.

"There is no supply (of coal) from the Rajmahal mines in Jharkhand," he said, adding that "we have approached the Coal Ministry to supply coal from other mines to these plants".

Rajmahal coal mines in the Naxal hit Jharkhand meets the dry fuel requirement of NTPC's 2,350-MW Kahalgaon and 1,600-MW Farakka plants, which require eight and 15 rakes of coal per day, respectively. One rake equals to 3,600 metric tonnes.

The combined coal requirement of these power plants from April to June 2009 was 112.41 million tonnes, while they got only 87.92 million tonnes, official data stated.

The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure in August this year approved the expansion of Rajmahal coal mines in order to increase supplies to the NTPC facilities.

NTPC is importing nearly 15 million tonnes of coal this fiscal to bridge the shortfall. The company is also exploring the possibility of acquiring stakes in coal mines in Mozambique, South Africa, etc.