Coal news and updates

Coal and power minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday said the government is geared up to comply with the Supreme Court’s verdict on the fate of the “illegally” allocated captive coal blocks and will ensure “quick action” to provide adequate coal supplies to every power plant.

“Whatever is the decision of Supreme Court we will respect… we will ensure quick action there after to get the process once again rolling, get coal production significantly enhanced to reach the target of 1 billion tonnes by 2019 and ensure that every power plant in this country gets adequate coal,” he said.

Responding to a query at a press conference here, the minister said, “On behalf of the government the coal ministry did not try to protect any mine (against likely deallocation) nor did it suggest that the blocks should be stopped from deallocation.” He, however, refused to give a timeline on when will the auction of coal blocks would begin saying “no timeline till the decision of the Supreme Court”.

He said the government as been able to manage over 21 per cent growth in electricity generation, despite investments worth tens of billions of dollars getting “stressed” due to the policies of the UPA regime.

Goyal told reporters that the government had inherited a host of legacy issues in both coal mining and power generation and that the first 100 days were spent in drawing detailed roadmaps and initiating steps to address coal feedstock to power plants.

The government held talks with 18 states, financial institutions, power sector stakeholders, the environment ministry among others and the coordinated efforts resulted in power generation growing by 21.6 per cent between June to August, Goyal said.

Following the state-wide blackout in Delhi in May owing to a storm, the power ministry has chalked out a nine month plan to avert a similar crisis in future entailing an expenditure of Rs 7,700 crore. The work would include underground cabling, procurement of emergency restoration systems and smart metering, he said.

On the debt plaguing state electricity boards, Goyal said, “State electricity boards have an accumulated debt of over Rs 3,04,000 crore and their losses are Rs 2,52,000 crore, putting them at the brink of financial collapse.”

A series of ill-conceived moves handicapped the renewable energy sector as energy conservation was not an area of focus of the previous government, he added. The government has doubled clean energy cess to Rs 100 per tonne of coal to contribute to National Clean Energy Fund for financing renewable energy.

 

 

 

Source: http://indianexpress.com/