Beleaguered state Andhra Pradesh is battling with a slew of odds including financial crunch, lack of investments, lack of employment besides the ambiguity over capital Amaravati and its projects. While reverse tendering of Polavaram and renegotiation of PPAs have already sent wrong signals to investors of the state, the truncated state is now facing coal shortage which in turn is affecting the power supply that is crucial for investments and companies to set up their plants in the state.
As coal shortage looms large in AP affecting the daily power supply, AP CM YS Jagan has written a letter to his Telangana counterpart KCR. In the letter, AP government has requested Telangana to increase the daily supply of coal to AP from the Singareni coal mines. Currently, four rakes of coal a day is being supplied to AP which is insufficient. Jagan has asked this to increase to nine rakes of coal supply a day.
AP is usually adequately equipped in general. Never before, AP has faced coal shortage. However, AP state government admitted that a series of incidents has pushed it to coal shortage for Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO).
According to a statement released by CMO, an accident had occurred in Bharatpur mines in Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) area in July that caused closure of the mine and followed by 15 days strike which adversely affected the coal supplies to APGENCO state thermal stations. Again, in the third week of September 2019, there was a strike in MCL mines for 3 days and in the Singareni mines for one day. With these, AP’s thermal stations are once again adversely affected as a result. Hence, AP is now seeking more coal from Telangana to overcome this shortage.