Vijayawada: In a relief to the Andhra Pradesh state power utilities, Telangana’s Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has come to its rescue to improve the coal supply position. Due to shortage of coal, state power utilities were unable to generate sufficient, power leading to power outages across the state since the last few days.
The total thermal power installed capacity of AP is 5010 MW for which thermal stations have a coal fuel supply agreement with Mahanandi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL).
The annual coal linkage with MCL is 17.968 million metric tonnes and 8.88 million metric tonnes with SCCL. The closure of the Bharatpur mines in the MCL area due to an accident in July followed by a strike by staff for 15 days, adversely affected coal supply to APGenco thermal power stations. The present heavy monsoon rains in MCL and SCCL areas has also severely affected coal loading and supplies to APGenco.
SCCL has now improved coal supply to APGenco from 15,000 metric tonnes to 30,000 metric tonnes (MT) and similarly Mahanadi Coalfileds Ltd (MCL) plans to improve supplies from 7,500 MT to 19,000 MT for thermal plants.
In response to the request of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on improvement of coal supply, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has instructed Singareni Coal Collieries Ltd to improve coal supplies to APGenco thermal plants.
As a result, coal rake receipts from SCCL improved from 4 to 8 rakes and supplies improved from 15000 to 30000 MT, said APGenco managing director B Sreedhar.
