Punjab Newsline
BCCL to supply coal for Panipat thermal plant

Vinod Kumar Gupta
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
PANIPAT:Panipat thermal plant will be supplied coal by Bharat Coking Coal Limited(BCCL) in place of Northern Coal Fields Limited to improve the efficiency of plant.This arrangement has been approved by sub group for short term coal linkages under coal ministry.

The representatives of Central Electricity Authority, Indian Railways and Coal India limited. HPGCL has been accusing that Panipat Thermal Plant has not been running on full load as inferior coal quantity is being supplied by NCL from its Krishanshilla and Dudhichua collieries.

HPGCL official claimed that the efficiency of plant decreased while production cost increased. Low coal stocks are being attributed to poor transportation arrangements by railways.

The coal being supplied now at Panipat will be diverted to HPGCL’s thermal plant at Khedar. It is not clear the coal which is not good for thermal plant at Panipat will improve efficiency at Hissar thermal plant. As per CEA report HPGCL has imported coal in April and May which is as per assigned target. HPGCL has been given target of 1.45 million tons for year 2011-12 and has already imported 0.27 million tones. The imported coal is to be blended with Indian coal to improve efficiency of plants.

The power demand in state is more than 1100 lakh units and state thermal plants were generating 560 lakh units on Tuesday. Today both units of 1200 MW Hissar thermal; are under shut down in the morning. The unit 2 which had been down practically for the last two months due to high turbine vibrations was started in the afternoon at 2.45 PM.
The total generation from all the sources is around 1857 MW. Both units of 300 MW each at Yamuna Nagar thermal are running.