The non-power sector, which has been long starving for coal, has started witnessing increase in supplies from April 1, following comfortable stock situation in the power plants. The increased flow of the fuel has become a boon for many, a section of non-power consumers has been struggling to manage inventory. Since April 1 this year, Coal India (CIL) has reduced its backlog by more than 44% liquidating 2,300 arrear rakes during the three months period. The arrears stood over 5,100 rakes at the beginning of the current fiscal, a CIL spokesperson said.
Each rake can load 3,800 tonne of coal and so around 8.7 million tonne of backlog have been cleared of the total backlog of around 19 MT piled up during 2017-18 and 2018-19 . The rest is expected to be cleared in the next few months , a CIL official said. CIL supplied 33.7 MT of coal to non-power consumers since April this year till date against 29.95 MT during the corresponding period last fiscal. While the supplies to the non-power sector has accounted for 22% of the total coal supplied so far this fiscal, last year it was 19% of the total fuel supplies during the same period.
