Kejriwal trying to hide own 'failures' by claiming low coal supply: Goyal

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal today slammed Arvind Kejriwal for alleging that the national capital was facing an "alarming level" of coal shortage, saying the Delhi Chief Minister was trying to hide his own "failures" by making such "baseless" claims.

Kejriwal had yesterday written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to direct the Railways to provide rakes for transporting coal to power plants in Delhi-NCR, which is facing "alarming level" of coal shortage.

In his letter to Modi, the Delhi chief minister said that with rising temperatures and increasing power demand in Delhi, coal stock position is "very alarming" and needs immediate attention and intervention.

Responding to Kejriwal's claims, Goyal said that states need to plan their coal requirements better, make timely payments to ensure that there is no shortage.

"He is trying to hide his own failures. As the coal or railway minister, he has not written any letter to me, neither has he come to meet me in the past four years regarding the issue. I used to look after power, he has never come to see me even then.

"All of last year, Delhi's power requirement was very low and now suddenly when the demand for power has gone up, they are requisitioning for more coal. In fact, we have doubled the number of rakes to Dadri when their requirements rose. That's not a small achievement," Goyal told reporters here.

He said that in Dadri the demand for coal was low last year and it was running on three rakes per day all year.

However, as this year the power demand went up, the demand for rakes more than doubled from May 23 to May 28, Goyal said, adding that around 39 rakes of coal were sent to the plant.

Each rake is made up of 58 wagons and has a capacity of carrying 3,750 tonnes of coal, officials said.

"Both for coal mining and railway its not a switch on, switch off that overnight you say we need more rakes and the system can gear up to supply rakes overnight.

"Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's claims of inadequate coal supply in Delhi are false and baseless. Indian Railways is committed to ensuring adequate coal supplies in power plants serving Delhi and its supply has even been stepped up during the summer," he said.