New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The Centre has taken steps to enable coal supplies to Punjab’s independent power plants from Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd’s (PSPCL) captive mines, an official statement said on Sunday.
Adequate coal has been made available to Punjab’s power plants, and Coal India Limited (CIL) remains fully committed to ensuring uninterrupted fuel supply for power generation across the country, including in Punjab, the Coal Ministry said.
“Higher utilisation of PSPCL’s own plants, monitoring breakdowns at IPPs, together with timely lifting of coal already offered by CIL subsidiaries, would help optimise power generation and address the state’s requirements,” the ministry stated.
The statement has come against the background of media reports suggesting that the power crisis in Punjab has deepened as 14-hour cuts have hit factories and farms. The reports have attributed reduced power generation at Punjab’s thermal plants towards plant outages and inadequate coal supply.
The Coal Ministry clarified that this does not present the complete picture. “The Central Government has proactively facilitated coal movement to IPPs in Punjab since the commencement of captive mine production,” it said further.
On coal supplies to Punjab, the ministry stated that against Nabha Power Limited’s (NPL) (Rajpura) average consumption of around 4.3 rakes/day over the last three days, rake supply has averaged around 5 rakes/day and against Talwandi Sabo Power Limited’s (TSPL) consumption of around 3.8 rakes/day, supply has averaged around 5 rakes/day.
Through September 2026 so far, average supply has been around 4.9 rakes/day for NPL and 4.1 rakes/day for TSPL, which is higher than the average consumption of these IPPs.
Suggesting that Punjab needs to improve offtake from captive mines of PSPCL, the ministry highlighted that at the Pachhwara Central mine of PSPCL, for the period April 2026 to September 11, 2026, production stands at 83.67 per cent of the annual target, while despatch stands at only 68.44 per cent of the target.
“This gap points to a build-up of unevacuated stock at the mine of around 3.21 lakh tonnes, which the State should evacuate to generate more power at PSPCL’s own plants,” it pointed out. PTI ABI MR
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