All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) in a letter to R K Singh, Union power minister on Thursday has expressed concern that electricity cost may increase at least by 30% due to the blending of imported coal with domestic coal.
Notably, the Union ministry of power has advised all the coal-based thermal generating stations to maintain adequate coal-stock according to their obligations.
In the case of domestic coal shortage,the generators can blend the imported coal up to 15% with domestic coal, to meet the increased power demand in the country.
VK Gupta spokesperson of the Federation said, “For a load center thermal stations say in Punjab, the landed cost of Indian coal is Rs 5,150 per tonne with gross calorific value (GCV) 4,000. The landed cost of imported coal is around Rs 22,000 per tonne with GCV 5,500. The blending of 15% imported coal will increase the per-unit cost from Rs 3.22 per unit to Rs 4,37 per unit. State Discoms which are already facing a financial crunch will not be able to afford this price increase.”
V K Gupta further said that the private generators are not covered under the CAG audit and they can manipulate the increase in tariff by forged documents.
The investigations of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) regarding forged documents of imported coal by IPPs and particularly by Adani, are pending decisions in the Supreme Court.
Further, there are two aggravating factors. The global prices of coal have increased which would make import a costly option. Moreover, the coal production in India has stagnated in the past three years while the demand is increasing every year.
IPPs which have contracts of 25 years at fixed rates for each year must be directed to ensure an adequate supply of coal stock to supply power as per the bid rate contained in PPA.”
AIPEF has urged the central government to take steps to increase coal production to ensure that the crisis is not repeated next year. There are instances when specific stations did act to build up required coal stocks before the start of the monsoon.