Imported coal based power plants an albatross around neck: Piyush Goyal

Union minister for renewable power, coal and mines Piyush Goyal on Saturday said that despite the ample coal availability, the country has to import coal mainly to meet the needs of power plants with an installed capacity of 83,100 MW power projects as they are designed to run on imported coal and not on domestic coal which contains 40% fly ash.

The union minister of state for power, renewable power, coal and mines Piyush Goyal said “These plants have become an albatross around my neck. The power generated by these plants is costly. The imported coal-based power plants were planned despite India has third largest coal reserves. At the same time, we have to regulate coal production as nearly 55 million tonnes of coal is gathered at the pithead coal mines for low demand especially from states,” he said.

The union minister, who was speaking at the sidelines of a conference on the power sector, said the country is also facing another problem where in the power generation plants are purchasing low coal quantity not to block the working capital. “The coal production in the first quarter was brought down by 5% also to avoid fire in coal mines.”

Goyal said the …read more