Govt launches portal for monitoring coal supply to power plants

<p> </p><p>The government has launched a portal for better coordination among the ministries of power, coal and Indian Railways for coal supply to power plants. <br><br>The Prakash portal – ‘Power Rail Koyla Availability through Supply Harmony’ – will enable all stakeholders to monitor coal right from mines to transportation, power Secretary SC Garg said. This is a laudable project in ensuring adequate availability optimum utilisation of coal at thermal power plants, Coal Secretary Anil Jain said. <br><br>The Portal is designed to help in mapping and monitoring entire coal supply chain for power plants, viz -  coal stock at supply end (mines), coal quantities/ rakes planned, coal quantity in transit and coal availability at power generating station, an official statement said. <br><br>Through the portal, coal company will be able to track stocks and the coal requirement at power stations for effective production planning. Indian Railways will plan to place the rakes as per actual coal available at siding and stock available at power stations while power stations can plan future schedule by knowing rakes in pipe line and expected time to reach. <br><br>The present mechanism to review coal supply situation consists of an inter-ministerial group which has officials from ministries of Power, Coal, Railways, CEA, power utilities and coal companies. This group holds weekly meetings to review coal supply situation as well as railway logistics. <br><br>It was observed that this mechanism faced several issues such as scattered information, correctness of data from different organizations, timely availability of data etc. This often led to difficulties in decision making, the statement said.</p><p> <br>Referred from economic times</p>

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