PATIALA: Facing a peculiar situation right ahead the onset of the paddy season in which power generation at privately owned case II projects has been hit by the shortage of coal, the state government has shot a letter to the union ministry for coal to consider these plants at par with state owned thermal stations while allocating the coal stocks The government said being case II private plants, the 1400 MW Rajpura Thermal Plant and the 1920 MW Talwandi Sabo thermal plants sell entire electricity generated to meet state’s demand and forced shut down of these affects the availability of power forcing the corporation to go in for regulatory measures (read power cuts). Thus, their coal allocation should be made at par with the state owned thermal stations.The letter has been written following a crisis like situation where the Rajpura Thermal plant had to shut down one of its 660 MW unit twice in the last 45 days due to fuel shortage.Newly appointed chairman cum managing director of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) Baldev Singh Saran said, “As the power demand is expected to escalate over 12000 MW a day during the paddy season, we want that all thermal units in the state to generate power at 100% of their capacity, which is possible only when there is enough coal to sustain operations.”He said the government had also asked the union government to make changes in the coal linage of four units of the Bathinda thermal power plant and the two units of the Ropar Thermal plants and, which have been shut down and provide the same to case II private projects in the state including.Meanwhile, the management of the Rajpura Thermal plant on Wednesday stated that after the intervention of chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who wrote a separate letter to the union government on July 7, the Coal Indian Limited (CIL) has increased coal send outs to meet the fuel requirements of the plant. Athar Shahab, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the plant, said while the coal situation had eased to a certain extent, but in case supply falls, the plant can again face a forced shutdown.On the statement issued by Coal India Limited that Rajpura Thermal had been unable to lift allocated coal, Shahab said they had made advance payment for coal, which was struck in transportation due to logistic problems.Meanwhile, the PSPCL has also allowed the Talwandi Sabo plant and the Rajpura plant to import 3 lakh and 2 lakh metric tonnes of coals to meet the fuel requirements during the paddy season.

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