No power crisis this festive season, already imported 20 million tonne coal: Power Secretary Alok Kumar

India will not face any power crisis during this festival season due to coal shortage at thermal plants as 20 million tonne of coal has already been imported so far, Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar said on Thursday.

Last year around this time, the country faced power crisis due to coal shortages at thermal plants. This had prompted the Centre to take slew of measures to scale up supplies and manage the crisis in 2021.

"It (power crisis due to coal shortage) is not going to happen this time (during festival season). We have already imported 20 million tonne of coal so far (this fiscal year) and we have used 15 million tonne out of this," Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of conference 'INSIGHT2022' on green mobility.

Festival season, especially in North India, will begin with the onset of Navratri in the last week of September 2022.

When asked whether India will import more coal, he said coal will be imported whenever needed.

About any specific plan to import more coal, he said there is always a back-up plan for any unforeseen situation.

Kumar also talked about the government's promotion of electric vehicles and its charging infrastructure.

He said the government would soon redraft Faster Adoption and Manufacture of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles Scheme (FAME) to provide subsidy for setting up of upstream infrastructure to firms setting up EV charging infrastructure.

He explained that discoms or utilities set up upstream infrastructure like transformers for providing electricity supply to EV charging stations which cost around Rs 5-6 lakh.

"We would give subsidy to firms setting up EV charging infrastructure to pay the discoms or utilities setting up upstream infrastructure."

Presently the companies setting up EV charing stations are required to pay for this upstream infrastructure.