PRAKASH portal

News:Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy(IC) and Union Minister of Coal has launched PRAKASH portal.

Facts:

About the portal:

• PRAKASH stands for Power Rail Koyla Availability through Supply Harmony.
• The portal aims at bringing better coordination for coal supplies among all stakeholders namely Ministry of Power, Ministry of Coal, Coal India, Railways and power utilities.
• The portal is developed by NTPC and sources data from different stakeholders such as Central Electricity Authority(CEA), Centre for Railway Information System(CRIS) and coal companies.
• This portal will play an important role in ensuring adequate availability and optimum utilization of coal at thermal power plants.

Benefits of Portal to the Stakeholders:

• Coal company will be able to track stocks and the coal requirement at power stations for effective production planning
• Indian Railways will be able to plan to place the coal quantity as per actual coal available at power stations.
• Power stations can plan future schedule by knowing coal quantities in pipe line and expected time to reach.
• Ministry of Power /Ministry of Coal can review overall availability of coal at thermal power plants in different regions.

Additional information:

About Central Electricity Authority

• CEA is an organization originally constituted under Section 3(1) of the repealed Electricity (Supply) Act,1948, since substituted by Section 70 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
• It’s objective is to formulate National Electricity Plan every five years for optimum utilization of available resources for power generation.
• It works under the Ministry of Power and is located in New Delhi.

About NTPC:

• NTPC is India’s largest power utility.It was established in 1975.
• It was incorporated under the Companies Act 1956 and is promoted by the Government of India. 
• The headquarters of the company is situated in New Delhi.

About Centre for Railway Information System(CRIS):

• The Ministry of Railways set up CRIS as a society in July 1986.
• It designs, develops, implements and maintains most of the important information systems of Indian Railways. 
• It is headquartered in New Delhi.