By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MARCH 29, 2020: THE Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Pralhad Joshi, has ensured that Coal supplies are declared as an Essential service and directed all the officials of Ministry of Coal to work harder to ensure that critical coal supplies are maintained during the lockdown period due to COVID 19 pandemic so that power and other critical sectors are unaffected due to the current situation.

Daily meetings of all senior officers of the Ministry are being held for monitoring coal production, supplies and dispatch. The first such virtual meeting was taken on March 26, 2020 through video conferencing by Coal Secretary Mr Anil Kumar Jain. A daily report would be given to the Coal Minister. As Ministry of Coal is a fully paperless office the entire staff is working on the e- office platform from the Ministry or at home as per duty rosters.

Coal stocks at power plants stand at 41.8 MT equivalent to 24 days consumption as of March 26, 2020. The Minister informed that various steps have been taken to ensure the easy and adequate availability of coal to every coal dependent industry/Power Sector.

The Union Minister appreciated work being done by the Coal India Limited where all officers and workers are ensuring the coal production and supplies are not affected in these critical times.

Mr Joshi further assured that no approvals requiring concurrence of Ministry of Coal would be held up during the current lockdown period.