Indian Captive Power Producers call for restoration of normal coal supplies

Pointing out that independent power producers (IPPs) did not build up the required inventories which led to the coal supply crisis, Rajiv Agarwal, Secretary-General of ICPPA, said this failure to create inventories has led to the depletion of the insurance stock and consequently a “complete crash of the whole system”.

He rued that the CPPs were facing this situation at a time when significant investments to the tune of USD 30 billion had been made for setting them up and their associated infrastructure, which have generated 15 lakh direct and indirect employment.

Out of a total of 78,000 MW installed CPP capacity in the country, around 40,000 MW (i.e. 55 per cent) CPPs are thermal based, which requires 200 million tonnes of coal per annum.

The IPPs are not building inventories because they know that if there is a crisis the government will help them, ICPPA said.

Rajiv Agarwal said, ''Today, where we have reached is 35-40 percent of what we should be getting. All the coal rakes made for CPPs have virtually stopped."

ICPPA emphasized that this would be the right time to start normalizing supplies, as the IPPs look to build at least 30-days inventory by March 2022 and then start supplying to CPPs and industries.