India's power sector imports 35.3 MT coal during the Apr-Oct period

14 Dec 2023 CW Team

During the April-October period of the current fiscal year, the domestic power sector imported 35.3 million tonnes (MT) of coal, as revealed in Parliament. Union Minister RK Singh shared that of this total, import-based power plants, reliant on imported coal, accounted for 21.7 MT, while thermal plants imported 13.6 MT for blending purposes.

In the preceding fiscal year of 2022-23, the total import volume reached 55.6 MT. Among this, import-based plants brought in 20.5 MT coal, while the remaining 35.1 MT was imported by thermal power plants. It is essential to note that thermal power plants depend on coal for electricity generation.

Up to October 2023, India produced 10,47,439 million units of power, as reported by Singh. Additionally, plans are in place to deploy approximately 197.9 million pre-paid consumers' smart meters across states. Furthermore, these states and union territories aim to install around 52 lakh distribution transformer (DT) smart meters and 1.88 lakh feeder smart meters under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS).

The RDSS, set to continue until FY 2025-26, targets reducing Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses to pan-India levels of 12-15 per cent and eliminating the Average Cost of Supply and Average Realizable Revenue (ACS-ARR) gaps by 2024-25. This strategic initiative aims to enhance the financial viability of Distribution Companies (Discoms) and uplift the power sector as a whole.

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