Raipur, July 23 (Inditop.com) A 500 MW power plant in Chhattisgarh that stopped production July 14 due to coal shortage has resumed generation, a company official said Thursday.
The NSPCL plant, set up by state-run National Thermal Power Corporation and the Steel Authority India Limited, is located at Bhilai in Durg district, some 30 km west of here.
The plant, with two units of 250 MW each, had stopped generation two days after achieving full load capacity of 500 MW July 12 when union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had dedicated the plant to the nation.
“We restarted the first unit Wednesday with coal purchased through e-auctions. The full load capacity will be achieved next week,” V.D. Paranjape, general manager of the project, told IANS.
“For the past 13 days, coal supply by Coal India Limited’s subsidiary South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) had stopped. But we have restarted generation work with a hope that coal shortage problem will be just for a short period and the supply is bound to improve,” he said.
The project needs 3 million tonnes of coal every year.
Of the 500 MW generated, 280 MW is to go to state-owned SAIL’s Bhilai Steel Plant, 100 MW to the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, 70 MW to the union territory of Daman and Diu, and the remaining 50 MW to Chhattisgarh.
