Source: Press Information Bureau
The Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy and the Union Minister for Coal, Mines PRAKASH (Power Rail Koyla Availability through Supply Harmony) portal
Background
The present mechanism to review the coal supply situation consists of an inter-ministerial group that has officials from Ministries of Power, Coal, Railways, CEA, power utilities and coal companies. This group holds weekly meetings to review the coal supply situation as well as railway logistics. It was observed that this mechanism faced several issues such as scattered information, the correctness of data from different organizations, timely availability of data, etc. This often led to difficulties in decision making
To address such situations, Ministry of Power asked CEA for establishment of a transparent mechanism to monitor the coal availability at loading site (CIL,SCCL), placement of rakes by Railways (CRIS) and availability of coal at power stations (NTPC / DVC /State utilities) and also directed NTPC to facilitate CEA for portal development.
Aim of the Portal
The Portal aims at bringing better coordination for coal supplies among all stakeholders viz – Ministry of Power, Ministry of Coal, Coal India, Railways and power utilities. This is an important step in ensuring adequate availability and optimum utilization of coal at thermal power plants.
The Portal is designed to help in mapping and monitoring the 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.
Benefits of Portal to the Stakeholders
The portal makes available following information on a single platform ;
- 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.
- Power stations can plan future schedule by knowing rakes in the pipeline and expected time to Reach.
- Stock at power generating station
- Ministry of Power /Ministry of Coal/ CEA/ POSOCO can review the overall availability of coal at thermal power plants in different regions
Who developed this Portal?
PRAKASH Portal is developed by NTPC and sources data from different stakeholders such as Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) and coal companies.
Reports of the Portal
Currently, the Portal will make available four reports as detailed below –
Daily Power Plant Status
- This report gives Station data related to power generation, coal receipt, consumption, and stock.
- The report can be generated utility wise, state-wise and sector-wise (default utility-wise).
Periodic Power Plant Status
- The report gives Station data related to power generation, coal receipt, consumption and stock for the selected period.
- Coal materialization based on dispatch by coal company is available.
Plant Exception Report
- This report gives materialization and rakes in the pipeline through Rail.
Coal Dispatch Report
- The report gives coal subsidiary wise dispatch for a particular period.
- It also gives source wise details of coal dispatch.
- A dispatch trend is also shown.
- Plantwise and siding wise details are available.
