The Government approved the fading away of the existing Letter of Assurance (LoA) – Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA) regime and introduced Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyala (Coal) Transparently in India (SHAKTI) in 2017, amended in 2019. SHAKTI Policy is a transparent way of allocating coal to the power plants including stressed power plants.
Supply of coal to the power plants is a continuous process. To address the issues of coal supplies to Power Sector, an Inter-Ministerial Sub Group comprising of representatives from Ministry of Power, Ministry of Coal, Ministry of Railways, Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Coal India Limited (CIL) and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) meet regularly to take various operational decisions to enhance supply of coal to thermal power plants as well as for meeting any contingent situations relating to Power Sector including to alleviate critical coal stock position in power plants.
In addition to this, an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has been constituted comprising of Chairman, Railway Board; Secretary, Ministry of Coal; Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Secretary, Ministry of Power; to monitor augmentation of coal supply and power generation capacity. Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Chairperson, CEA are co-opted as Special Invitees as and when required by the IMC. Coal dispatch from the captive coal blocks is also being monitored regularly. As per the CEA report, the coal stock as on 29.01.2023 at the thermal power plants in the country is 32.97 Million Ton (MT).
This information was given by Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shri Pralhad Joshi today in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.