Punjab Newsline
Coal transportation may hit power requirements for commonwealth games
VINOD KUMAR GUPTA
Monday, 12 October 2009
NEW DELHI: The transportation of coal for thermal projects at Dadri in Uttar Pardesh and Jhajhar thermal plant in Haryana may be a major hurdle in operating these units at full capacity to meet the power requirements for common wealth games.

The existing railways transportation system for supply of coal to the thermal power stations located in Northern India, particularly Western UP, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan is almost fully saturated with the existing traffic of passenger trains and railway freight including coal.

As per information obtained from Railway authorities, the spare capacity for movement of coal from the coalmine areas of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar to the thermal power stations in north India is only 7 rakes per day. A movement of 7 rakes per day is just sufficient to operate a thermal power station of about 1500 MW capacity.

As per web site of Central Electricity Authority new power stations are being constructed with a capacity of about 3680 MW, which is due to, be Commissioned in 2010.

NTPC 980 MW Dadri Units of consisting of two units of 490 MW each are due to be Commissioned for meeting the requirements of Commonwealth Games. The tentative commissioning schedules of these units are January 2010 and May 2010 respectively.

The coal requirements for Dadri thermal plant are 4.03 million tones per year, which is equivalent to about 5 rakes per day. It may be mentioned that one freight train of coal has 58 wagons with a total coal quantity of 3700 tones,NTPC is also constructing the 1500 MW Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Plant at Jhajhar having 3 units of 500 MW each.

This power station is also being constructed for meeting the requirement of common wealth games. As per schedule first 500 Mw unit of project is due for commissioning in April 2010. The other two units are to follow after a gap of three months each. All the three units are supposed to be commissioned by October 10.The coal requirements for this thermal plant is 7 rakes per day.

The total requirements of the above two thermal plants is 12 rakes per day whereas it is possible to transport maximum of 7 rakes per day. It would not be possible to supply of 12 rakes daily over the existing overloaded railway station.

Haryana Power Generation Corporation is also constructing the Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant at Hisar with 2 units of 600 MW each with a total capacity of 1200 MW.

The Commissioning dates of these two units are scheduled for December 09 and March 2010. This power station would consume about 6 rakes of coal per day with an annual linkage of 5.55 million tones per year. However, this coal would come from the Mahanadi coalfields, which are not located in the Bihar or Jharkhand area. This coal movement would not suffer as these rakes take a different route.

Indian railways are planning a dedicated freight corridor and a construction period of 5 years is required after the loans arrangements are finalized.