With the improvement in the coal supply in the last couple of days, the state authorities expect the situation to regularise by bridging the demand-supply gap by the end of the week. Currently, the state authorities are compelled to purchase power from the open market at a high rate, and cutting the supply to the agricultural pump by two hours to meet the demand.

The short supply of coal for thermal power generation in the last two weeks has resulted in shutting down of 13 units of state-owned and private power stations resulting in drop in generation of more than 3,300 MW. The state government’s six units with a total capacity of 1,860 MW and seven other units of two private players with a total capacity of 1,450 MW were shut for the past few days. Few of them have now resumed power generation.

This has forced the state to buy power from open market at high rate ranging between ₹2.98 and ₹20 per unit. The state has purchased 800MW to 2200 MW power per day since October 1 and has spent ₹140 crore on it. The current per day demand of power hovers between 17,500-18,000 MW, but the state expects it to go to 22,000MW because of the rise in temperature in October, increase in agricultural activities and ongoing festive season.

“The current shortfall of about 4,000MW is met through a hike in hydro-power generation at Koyana and other stations to 2,000MW and remaining from the power purchase through energy exchange. We have also reduced the supply of the power to agricultural pumps by 2 hours in the night and have appealed people to utilise the power judiciously during peak hours in the morning and evening. We have started receiving 1 lakh MT coals in the past few days against the daily requirement of 1.15 lakh MT and expect the supply to improve further. With the improvement in the supply, we are resuming Bhusawal unit of 500MW from tomorrow and expect all other units to go operational in next eight days,” said an official from MSEDCL.

Dinesh Waghmare, principal secretary, energy department, said, “The coal supply is improving and we have started resuming the power generation in the units which were shut. Load shedding depends on various factors.”