Power crisis will increase: Coal secretary

RANCHI: The two important industrial sectors - power and steel - will face acute crisis because of coal shortage during the 12th five-year plan due to shortfall of production.

Union coal secretary Alok Perti, who was on a visit to the state, admitted that steel and power, along with other industries of the country will face crisis in availability of coal due to a shortfall in production. The overall shortfall is expected to be around 260 million tonnes (MT) by end of the plan period. "The maximum impact will be on the steel and power sector as they will face shortage of at least 60-70 MT each. It is a serious matter and in case we fail to meet the requirements, we will have to depend on imports," said Perti, adding the union government is taking steps to minimize the problem.

Keeping in mind the gap in demand and supply the union coal secretary had a meeting with state chief secretary SK Chaudhary to resolve the bottlenecks in land acquisition faced by coal mining companies. Jharkhand is one of the major coal-producing states and has three subsidiaries of the Coal India Limited (CIL) - Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) and Eastern Coalfields Limited. The union coal secretary asked the state's chief secretary to clear the land acquisition problem faced by the three subsidiaries of CIL so that the problem of coal shortage is mitigated at least to some extent.