{"id":181059,"date":"2022-04-25T20:40:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T15:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=181059"},"modified":"2022-04-25T20:40:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T15:10:32","slug":"that-coal-feeling-shortage-of-rail-wagons-is-one-reason-for-dipping-power-plant-inventory-but-problem-goes-further","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/that-coal-feeling-shortage-of-rail-wagons-is-one-reason-for-dipping-power-plant-inventory-but-problem-goes-further\/","title":{"rendered":"That coal feeling: Shortage of rail wagons is one reason for dipping power plant inventory. But problem goes further"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Context<\/strong>: Thermal power plants in India are once again struggling with coal inventory dipping to critical levels. A similar coal crisis <\/a><\/strong><\/span>had surfaced in India in October last year.<\/p>\n

Given that both coal mining and logistics through railways are dominated by GoI-owned enterprises, it reflects poorly on official management of an essential economic input.<\/p>\n

What is the situation wrt shortage of coal in India?<\/h5>\n

On April 21, 62% of the plants had coal stock that was classified by the Central Electricity Authority as critical, inventory of less than 25% of the normative stock.<\/p>\n

A month earlier, about 49% of plants were classified as critical.<\/p>\n

What is the reason behind the present coal crisis?<\/h5>\n

CEA\u2019s reports show that many plants have indicated inadequacy of railway rakes<\/strong> as the reason for low stock.<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> It\u2019s inexplicable. Coal provides about 49% of railway freight earnings and is the key to a healthy financial performance. It\u2019s puzzling how railways finds itself unable to anticipate the infrastructure needs of the most important item it moves.<\/p>\n

Why the current shortage is worrisome?<\/h5>\n

What makes the current situation worrisome is that planning deficiencies at the central level have come in the backdrop of a weak financial position of state government distribution companies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This makes it unlikely they will use imports to fill the gap as the benchmark coal Australia price has more than doubled in a year to an average of $197 per tonne in the January-March quarter.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/h5>\n

India\u2019s struggle with coal supply to its power plants has come about at a time when manufacturing still has spare capacity. It\u2019s a timely wake-up call for the full chain in the power sector<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ad hoc reforms will not work any longer.<\/p>\n

The distribution link has to move to a more efficient pricing system<\/strong> while the upstream segments of the power sector are choked by mounting overdues.<\/p>\n

And as the primary logistics provider in the sector, the railways needs to step up<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article \u201cThat coal feeling: Shortage of rail wagons is one reason for dipping power plant inventory. But problem goes further<\/strong>\u201d published in The Times of India<\/strong> on 24th Apr 22<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Context: Thermal power plants in India are once again struggling with coal inventory dipping to critical levels. A similar coal crisis had surfaced in India in October last year. Given that both coal mining and logistics through railways are dominated by GoI-owned enterprises, it reflects poorly on official management of an essential economic input. What… Continue reading That coal feeling: Shortage of rail wagons is one reason for dipping power plant inventory. But problem goes further<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10496],"class_list":["post-181059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-times-of-india","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704952802},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}