The Ministry of Power (MoP) has issued directions to all gencos that if the orders for import of coal for blending are not placed by gencos by May 31, 2022 and if the imported coal for blending purpose do not start arriving at the power plants by June 15, 2022, all the defaulter gencos would have to import coal for blending purpose to the extent of 15 per cent (in order to meet shortfall of imported coal for blending purpose in April-June 2022) in the remaining period upto October 31, 2022and thereafter at the rate of 10 per cent from November 2022 to March 2023.
Further, MoP has stated that if blending with domestic coal is not started by June 15, 2022 then the domestic allocation of the concerned defaulter thermal power plants will be further reduced by 5 per cent. The revised allocation of domestic coal for the month of July, 2022 onwards will be conveyed based on the this methodology. All gencos have been advised to ensure adequate stocks at their power plants for smooth operation until October 2022.The MoP had issued directions under section 11 of the Electricity Act that all the imported coal based plants start running and most of them have started running. However, the import by states of coal for blending is not satisfactory. In 2018-19, a total of 21.4 million tonne (mt) of coal were imported for blending, while in 2019-20, the total coal import for blending was 23.8 mt. Meanwhile,in 2021-22, it was only 8.3 mt, which is the cause of stress in the availability of coal.