Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has decided to supply over 81%, 57 million tonnes (MT) out of its targeted 70 MT, of coal production during the current fiscal (2022-23) to thermal power generation plants in Telangana and other States, mostly in the Southern region, to meet their energy needs.
The country is passing through a phase of energy crisis with many States resorting to load shedding to different categories of consumers to manage the demand-supply gap. Telangana, which is the only State in the country that has been supplying uninterrupted power to all categories of consumers including 24×7 supply to agriculture sector, has also been forced to resort to load shedding recently for the first time after December 2018, irrespective of the reasons.
The management of SCCL has recently written to the Coal Ministry assuring it of supplying 57 MT of coal to thermal power plants which have coal linkage with it (Singareni). Accordingly, the company has plans to supply 4.8 MT coal to thermal power plants this month. Till April 17, about 2.67 MT coal was supplied.
Last year, the company has supplied over 82.5% of its coal production or over 53.65 MT of 65 MT produced to thermal power plants. Supply of coal to cement, ceramic, paper, sponge iron and other industries was less last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic impact on their production activity.
To meet the demand of thermal power plants, the company has decided to mine at least 2.1 lakh tonnes (0.21 MT) of coal every day with supply of at least 1.7 lakh tonnes (0.17 MT) to thermal plants.
In the wake of shortage of explosives needed for the purpose of overburden removal, the company has also taken steps to step-up production in the explosives’ plants being run by the company as also asking its regular suppliers to improve dispatches. Last year, the shortage of explosives has affected the production to some extent.
Executive Director (coal movement) of the company J. Allwyn and General Manager (coordination and marketing) K. Suryanarayana instructed the authorities down the line to ensure coal dispatches at least by 36 railway rakes every day. They were told to dispatch 6.5 rakes from Kothagudem, 5.5 each from Srirampur and RG-2 (Ramagundam), 5 from Manugur, 4 from Yellandu and 3.5 from RG-1.
It has been decided to supply 4,000 tonnes of coal every day from Bhupalapally area to the 1,100 megawatt (MW) Kakatiya thermal power plant.
