Santanu Saraswati
Kolkata, February 3—It could be a repetition of same old story—from March onwards—with sweltering summer, and long hours of power cuts even during the off-peak periods, just like the summer of 2008.
The minister of power and renewable energy, Mrinal Banerjee, told Hindustan Times, on Tuesday that if coal problem persists, it wouldn’t be possible for the state-run thermal power generation stations to generate optimum required to meet the additional demand for electricity during the summer.
The state registers an additional 10-12 per cent rise in the demand for electricity during summer days. The average demand for electricity varies from 5200-mega watts to 5250-mega watts every day.
Recently, the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) has allotted two more coal blocks, covering 9.7 square km, to state power department in Deocha-Pachami block of Birbhum district. These two coal blocks will be jointly run by the West Bengal Mineral Development & Trading Corporation (WBMDTC) and NMDC. While NMDC owns 50 per cent, WBMDTC owns 40 per cent and another 10 per cent would be with West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited (WBPDCL). However, NMDC has the right to dilute the equity up to 15 per cent.
But in these blocks too, the state is yet to get the environment clearance. “We are yet to receive the environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment & Forest for using the captive coal mines allotted to us. This hampered in getting the temporary linkage from the Ministry of Coal. The mining that could have started by now could never start exploration activity before 2011. We have written several letters to the Union government in this regard, but yet to get any positive response,” Banerjee said.
The per capita energy consumption by fuel in India is highest for coal—54 per cent followed by oil-32 per cent and natural gas eight per cent compared to world per capita consumption of coal is just 27 per cent followed by oil 37 per cent and natural gas 24 per cent. But the coal crisis in power sector is a burning question—both in terms of quality and quantity. State generation stations suffer much because of very low-grade coal supply than in quantity.
Surprisingly, state thermal power generation companies bosses observed, while the extractable coal resources with the CIL are about 52 billion tonnes that is sufficient to meet the non-coking coal demand of the country for the next 50 years, CIL produced only 379 crore tonnes, less against its target of 405 crore tonnes of coal. The state is slated to see massive load shedding from March 2008 if we do not receive a temporary linkage from Coal India soon. The existing block at Tara was allotted sometimes in the 90’s and its reserves are set to get exhausted any day. The Panchoara-North coal block was allotted in the year 2002 but the state managed to receive environment clearance only in July 2008. The block can only start operation from late-2011. “In the interim we will require additional supplies to run the new capacities that have come on stream or we will have to face massive load shedding,” the power minister added.
The temporary linkage is a linkage to coal consumers, who are allotted blocks where mining is yet to commence. The consumers like the WBPDCL, Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL) have to be provided coal to sustain production of the new power units. Such linkages are considered by the Standing Linkage Committee (Long-term) under the Union Power Ministry to facilitate generation in case the development of coal blocks allocated to such consumers does not synchronize with operation of end use plant.
Presently, the WBPDCL requires about 55,000 tonnes of coal per day to run its generation stations at Sagardighi, Santaldih, Bakreshwar, Kolaghat, and Bandel thermal power stations. “But we are receiving only 30-35,000 tonnes. And there is no sing of development of this pathetic situation,” Banerjee said. EOM
santanu_saraswati@hotmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment