CM Yogi Adityanath urged power officials to maintain a routine power supply in Uttar Pradesh.
The state might face an electricity crisis as the backup coal stocks for thermal power plants have started depleting this month.
The coal shortage may worsen during the monsoon season when the supplies decline annually due to rain and floods, disrupting mining and transportation.
The coal shortage started in April due to lesser supply from coal companies facing a shortage of wagons for ferrying coal to plants.
Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL), M Devraj, told the media that the thermal plants were unable to maintain the coal stocks according to the norms.
Chairman of All-India Power Engineers Federation, Shailendra Dubey, said the coal shortage in the state has been affecting power production.
He added that this had forced UPPCL to order emergency load shedding in villages and smaller towns.
He said the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited’s (UPRVUNL) thermal plants at Harduaganj, Parichha and Obra lost more than 13 million units of generation due to the inability of plants to run on full steam due to a lack of availability of backup coal.
According to a Central Electricity Authority’s report, most of UP’s thermal plants had coal stocks in the critical and super-critical stages.
UPRVUNL’s four thermal plants, with an installed capacity of over 6,000 MW, are down by 21% of the mandatory normal level.
The Anpara plant had 39% of the normative coal reserves, while Harduaganj, Obra, and Parichha had only 15%, 18%, and 5%, respectively.
The norm for normative coal stock to be kept in the power plant depends on the distance of the power plant from the minehead.
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