Gehlot reaches out to Coal India, Railways to avoid shortage; seeks Rahul Gandhi's intervention to get coal from Chhattisgarh

New Delhi [India], February 18 : Foreseeing a shortage of coal, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has reached out to Coal India Ltd and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to expedite clearance from Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel to secure coal from state-owned coal mines in Chhattisgarh.
In a letter dated February 10, Gehlot wrote to Gandhi saying that Rajasthan state may suffer power crisis due to outage of 4,340 MW power plant on the ground of non-availability of Parsa East & Kanta Basan (PEKB) Coal block in Surguja, Chhattisgarh, which was allotted by Ministry of Coal, Government of India to Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam (a State Government undertaking) for power generation.
"Mining from this coal block is likely to be exhausted after February 2022," Gehlot said.
Notably, Congress is the incumbent government in both states.
Seeking the Wayanad MP's intervention, Gehlot in his letter said, "I request you to kindly intervene and advise the Chief Minister, Chhattisgarh to ensure arranging all the requisite pending approvals in respect of Parsa East & Kanta Basan (PEKB) Coal block enabling us to start mining activities at the earliest to avoid a power crisis in the state in future."
Rajasthan will lose eight to nine rakes of coal supply if Chhattisgarh government do not permit it to commence production from the next phase.
While reviewing the coal supply situation for state's power generation units last week, Gehlot instructed top officials to engage Coal India and Indian Railways to ensure adequate supply and smooth logistics in order to meet the possible shortfall in coal supplies to its generation units.
Gehlot also advised his team to clear old dues to Coal India and other companies to avoid power cuts in the state. Rajasthan has three captive coal blocks in Chhattisgarh but it is able to produce coal only from Parsa East & Kanta Basan (PEKB) Block.
In a bid to ensure uninterrupted power supply in the upcoming summer, Rajasthan government has initiated slew of measures to avoid coal shortage. It has also floated a tender to purchase 1,000 mw of electricity for short term during March to August.
A number of power generation units of Rajasthan are already failing to maintain adequate coal inventory even before the peak summer. Rajasthan government fears the situation to worsen from next month if it fails to get necessary clearances from Chhattisgarh government to commence the next phase of mining at its captive block.
Rajasthan consumes over 15,000 MW of electricity during peak summer. In September and October last year, Rajasthan's distribution utilities had to resort to hours-long power cuts even in urban areas including the state capital Jaipur. The government wants to ensure adequate availability of coal and power during the upcoming summer.