Coal Ministry Approves Transfer of Existing Coal Linkage of Panipat TPS to a New Supercritical Plant to be Set up at the Same Location

The Ministry of Coal has approved transfer of existing coal linkage of Panipat Thermal Power Station (TPS) to a new supercritical plant to be set up at the same location. The decision has been taken on the basis of recommendations of the Standing Linkage Committee (Long Term) which considered the request of the Government of Haryana.

It may be recalled that new Government after taking over in May, 2014, formulated a policy for automatic transfer of coal linkage in case of scrapping of old thermal plants and replacing them with new supercritical plants, to encourage better technology and production efficiency.

Under this dispensation, inefficient and uneconomical units 1 to 4 (each of capacity 110 MW) at Panipat TPS shall be replaced by setting up more efficient supercritical unit of 660/800 MW capacity at the available land within the same premises by way of simultaneous phasing out units 1 to 4 during the next 4 to 5 years.

Under this policy, LoA / linkage granted to the old plant shall be automatically transferred to the new plant of nearest supercritical capacity.If the capacity of the new supercritical plant is higher than the old plant, additional coal may be accorded priority subject to the availability of coal on the best effort basis from Coal India Limited (CIL).The only technical requirement is that a capacity equivalent to at least 50% of the proposed capacity of new supercritical plant has to be retired. This policy shall be applicable to pre-NCDP ( New Coal Distribution Policy) plants in public sector only, which have already been granted long term Linkages/ LoAs. Automatic transfer of LoA is permissible only when the new plant is set up within the State in which the old plant was located and the old plant is actually scrapped. Obviously, the old plant can continue to operate only till the commercial operation date (CoD) of new plant.

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