New Delhi: State-owned Coal India is transporting extra coal to the power plants to help them tide over the likely disruption of supplies following the proposed five-day strike by the unions beginning tomorrow.
"Coal India (CIL) is suppling extra volumes of coal to the power plants and the Railways is fully cooperating with the coal PSU," an official said.
The official further said that the CIL is making all efforts to ensure that the power plants do not face coal crunch in view of the strike call given by the trade unions.
The strike is likely to result in production loss of up to 1.5 million tonnes (MT) a day and may hit supplies to power plants which are already grappling with fuel shortages.
CIL trade unions have announced a five-day strike to press for their demands including roll-back of the "process of denationalising of coal sector" and stopping "disinvestment and restructuring" of Coal India.
Demonstrating unity, all five major trade unions of the coal PSU - BMS, INTUC, AITUC, CITU and HMS boycotted a meeting called by Coal Minister Piyush Goyal last week.
The strike by Coal India workers in November, last year was deferred after a meeting between Coal Ministry officials and trade union representatives.
Coal India, which is the world's largest dry-fuel miner, accounts for 80 per cent of the domestic production.
As per latest data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), 20 thermal power plants have coal available for less than four days as on January 1.
