PRAKASH PORTAL

Related Topics: Government Schemes & Initiatives, E-Governance

News

Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy (IC) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and the Union Minister for Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs have jointly launched PRAKASH (Power Rail Koyla Availability through Supply Harmony) portal.

Background

• The portal has been launched at a time when coal inventory at power plants are reduced to 20 MT at September 2019, sufficient to last for 11 days on an average.
• According to analysts, total inventory at power plants and coal companies now stand at 40 MT only.
• Coal production in the country declined 4% annually to 304 MT in the first six months of FY20, mainly due to excessive rains hampering mining operations.
• However, state-owned miners Coal India and Singareni Collieries have increased their supplies to the power sector by 66% annually to 426 MT in the same period.

Need for the Portal

• 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.
• 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.

About Prakash Portal

• It is developed by National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) and sources data from different stakeholders such as Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) and coal companies.
• To present information in a user friendly method, the Portal gives graphical representation of reports with details shown on the map of India.

Reports

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.
• 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 selected period.
• Coal materialisation based on dispatch by coal company is available.

Plant Exception Report

• This report gives materialisation and rakes in pipeline through Rail.

Coal Dispatch Report

• Report gives coal subsidiary wise dispatch for particular period.
• It also gives source wise details of coal dispatch.
• Dispatch trend is also shown.
• Plant wise and siding wise details are available.

Benefits of Portal to the Stakeholders

• 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 pipe line and expected time to reach.
• Ministry of Power /Ministry of Coal/ CEA/ POSOCO can review overall availability of coal at thermal power plants in different regions.