CIL to boost its delivery system for swift supply

03 Apr 2017

Coal India plans to ramp up its delivery system to be able to supply coal swiftly to consumers.

“We plan to draw up a regional power demand map and ready ourselves to supply coal even at a day’s notice. This would involve getting in touch with every coal consumer on a regular basis to keep a tab on their power demand curve,” said a senior Coal India executive. Last year, Coal India lost out on a sudden spurt in demand from a host of power generators just after the monsoons. Production and dispatch decline during monsoons. The company could not adequately ramp up its production and sales to meet the sudden rise in season demand.

Regional festivities also leads to spurt in demand. Although a major part of this is planned in terms of coal supply and power generation, the Coal India executive said a few subsidiaries could not meet the entire unplanned demand spurt in some regions. Coal India is making sure that its subsidiaries do not miss out on such opportunities this year.

“Stocks at pit-heads and consumers end would be filled up in advance, so that these generators can take care of spurt in demand. We would be making sure that coal can be supplied at a short notice,” he said.

During 2016-17, Coal India was offered a production growth target of 11%. It is likely to end up achieving 2.5% growth, mainly due to less than anticipated power demand growth.

Nevertheless, during 2017-18, the Central Electricity Authority has pegged a near 4.5% growth in power generation. Which is likely to require less coal than the target production figure of Coal India for the year.

Source – economictimes.indiatimes.com