(T.E.T)
Captive Power Plants (CPPs) are struggling to retain cost-competitiveness and sustainable industry operations due to the ongoing situation of non-equitable treatment compared to the power sector with regards to coal allocation, coal linkages, railway rakes, materialisation, coal pricing, the Indian Captive Power Producers Association (ICPPA) has said.
The non-power sectors are getting coal less than 20% of their quota while paying 20% higher price over the notified coal price. The differential coal pricing for different coal consumers is resulting in the sector paying a premium for the very same commodity, an official statement said.
The statement said Coal India has recently announced its decision to enhance the rake supplies to the power sector to 296 rakes per day, in order to increase coal stocks level to 14 days from current levels of around 10 days.
“This is against the total 272 rakes supplied on a per day basis in the month of November. The proposed increase in coal rakes for Power Sector will further deprive the NRS (non-regulated sector) consumers from getting sufficient coal rakes, and lead to a similar coal crunch situation recently witnessed by the NRS between August – November and other instances due to adhoc decisions for stopping/drastically reducing the coal supplies and rakes for NRS / CPPs for diversion to the Power Sector for ‘Priority Coal Supplies’,” it said.
These adhoc decisions have been taken without any advance notice, leaving the NRS industries with no time to devise any mitigation plan to continue sustainable operations, thereby bringing them to a virtual standstill, it added.
In the month of November, out of total 272 rakes per day, the Power Sector was supplied with 255 rakes, while NRS was provided only 17 rakes against the actual requirement of 50 rakes per day. The proposed plan for December 20221 envisages just 26 rakes per day for NRS, possibly leading to a huge coal deficit through rail mode for NRS consumers, the statement said
Any abrupt stoppage of this secured coal supply will bring the industry to a grinding halt and have a severe impact on the SMEs in the downstream sector, resulting in increased prices of finished products with burden on end consumers, the association said.
It also said any decision for stopping or curtailing secured coal supplies should not be taken on adhoc basis and the NRS should be give prior notice of 1 -3 months to devise mitigation plan w.r.t. coal/ power imports.
