Brushing aside NTPC's claim of being supplied lower-than-committed amounts of coal at its Farakka and Kahalgaon super thermal power stations (STPS), which are at present grappling with tremendous coal shortages, Coal India Limited (CIL) has blamed the entire situation on the lack of adequate unloading infrastructure at the project locations. According to CIL, while it makes every effort to dispatch eight to 10 rakes of coal to these plants, the average dispatch during April-June 2010 was restricted to 7.8 rakes per day due to the absence of track hoppers, which are essential for unloading Box-N wagons, via which Indian Railways prefers to transport coal. Further, the coal handling plants (CHP) at the two stations encountered faults on many occasions during the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal, claims CIL. According to the coal company, these constraints have caused even the supply of imported coal, which are also delivered by rail, to remain below target.Farakka and Kahalgaon STPSs are linked with the Chuperbita and Hurra-C coal mines, which are expected to commence production not before April 2012. In the interim, it has been allotted linkage from other CIL sources, which have been less than exemplary in meeting their requirements. While the total coal requirement of the Farakka and Kahalgaon-I and II projects is estimated to be around 25 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), CIL has, till the time the dedicated mines become operational, agreed to supply only 15 MTPA, leaving a gap of 10 million tonnes, which is to be sourced by NTPC from other sources.
It is possibly very hard to imagine how different our world was 600 to 300 Million years ago. Back in the period that coal is formed from was dominated by plant live and very little animal life. The other factors were higher oxygen content in the atmosphere along with a much moister environment. Based on these factors being in place it is not that hard to visualize lush and plentiful plant growth. So in some areas large accumulations of plant material would accumulate on the ground and create bogs were the material was covered by water or other plant material and did not completely break down. With geological changes other materials were deposited on top of these bogs and with depth and pressure turned to rock. The pressure dries the material, compressed it and eventually turned it to Coal, a flammable rock. This way coal is formed & tends to be in veins and stratified. Various conditions created various qualities of coal deposits that are presently mined for energy.
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