In a letter to all state governments and distribution companies (discoms), the Union ministry of power requested all states and UTs to utilise unallocated power of the central generating stations (CGS) to meet the requirement of their own consumers only.  The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has drawn up a plan to ensure uninterrupted fuel supplies to power plants even as the Union power ministry issued a directive that unallocated electricity supply will be snapped to states selling power on exchanges at higher rates instead of supplying to their customers.

Two government officials familiar with the matter said that the plan — discussed in a meeting on Tuesday held by PK Mishra, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, and attended by coal secretary Anil Kumar Jain, power secretary Alok Kumar, and railway board chairman Suneet Sharma — involves the state-run Coal India Ltd (CIL) supplying an additional 200,000 tonne of coal on a daily basis to ramp up the fossil fuel supplies to 2.1 million tonne per day.

It was also decided to facilitate operationalising the imported coal fuelled power generation capacity of 17.06 gigawatt (GW) to help ease the pressure on domestic coal fuelled power projects, they added.

The meeting at the PMO followed home minister Amit Shah’s meeting with coal minister Pralhad Joshi and power minister Raj Kumar Singh on Monday amid concerns by some states that depleted coal stocks at power plants may lead to blackouts. The power ministry on Sunday said “any fear of disruption in power supply is entirely misplaced”.