AIPEF again opposescoal import

Lucknow The All-India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF) has opposed the directive issued by the Central government again on Wednesday to import coal. The power engineers’ body has termed it an attempt by the Central government to put undue pressure on the states and reiterated its demand that since the coal crisis is not the fault of the state power generation plants , additional cost of coal imports should be borne by the Centre.

Shailendra Dubey, chairman, All India Power Engineers’ Federation, said in a statement , “ The order issued by the Centre on Wednesday states that the thermal power stations which have not placed their indents up to June 3 with Coal India Limited for imported coal or have not initiated their own tender process for import of coal for blending purposes will be allocated only 70% of quantity of domestic coal from June 7 and allocation will be further reduced to 60% from June 15. This is clearly an inappropriate response being extended to import coal which is not justified.”

Shailendra Dubey has appealed to all chief ministers of states to strongly oppose this unilateral dictatorial order of the ministry of power to import coal. It is worthwhile to mention that many states, including Uttar Pradesh, have decided not to go for import of coal. Other States not going for import of coal are Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana and Kerala.

Dubey said that on the one hand, the Central government had been claiming till April that the production of Coal India would be higher than the previous year and there was no crisis of coal, and on the other, it was saying that power houses should import coal and now this coal import programme had been extended till March, 31,2023.

He said that most of the thermal power stations in the states were not designed for imported coal. Blending imported coal would increase tube leakages in their boilers.

Shailendra Dubey said that shortage of rakes of railways was being cited as the main reason. In such a situation, how would the coal, (which will come to the ports) be transported to the thermal power stations located several thousand km away. The union power minister should also elaborate on this.

The All-India Power Engineers’ Federation has again stated that the present coal crisis has arisen due to the acute lack of coordination between the various ministries of the Central government, power, coal and railways. Therefore, undue pressure should not be put on the states to import coal by reducing their allocation of domestic coal and if the states are forced to import coal, then the Central government should bear the additional burden.