Badal seeks coal allocation for Gidderbaha thermal plant
Satinder Bains | Chandigarh

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has sought the intervention of the Ministry of Coal in expediting the allocation of coal blocks for meeting the future requirements of the 2640 MW Gidderbaha thermal project.

Badal, in a missive to the Coal Ministry on Friday, stated that due to non allocation of required coal linkage for Gidderwaha thermal project it was facing hurdles. The PSEB had to extend the date of submission for qualifications by bidders four times as no reply has been received in this regard, he said.

The letter says that this critical project is of great importance and on its completion the power shortage in the State would be mitigated to a great extent.

PSEB had sought a coal linkage of 12.8 million tonnes per annum for this project a year ago but there has been no response from the Ministry. Badal has also demanded that PSEB should not be mandated to meet coal import targets as Punjab was not a coastal State.

Moreover PSEB is devolving its own mines for supply of coal to its plants. Moreover the transportation charges of imported coal are very high as plants are very far away from ports.

Badal has also mentioned about the critical coal stock in the thermal plants at Ropar, Lehra Mohabatt and Bhatinda. The letter points out that PSEB is getting diminished coal supplies from Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd. CIL is supplying 5.98 million tonnes of coal per annum against its requirements of 10.16 million tones.

The coal stock at Ropar Thermal plant on Thursday morning was 1,20,000 mt which is just sufficient for six days. The coal stock at Lehra Mohabatt is 78,000 mt, sufficient for 5.5 days.

Bhatinda thermal plant has coal stock of 12 days. The power demand in the State has touched a record of over 1,920 lakh units as against a supply of 1,487 lakh units. The thermal plants of State are generating 566 lakh units daily.