Hot weather in Odisha has prompted the state authorities to stop production and loading at Coal India mines from 11 am to 4 pm daily, while work schedules in other states are being staggered to avoid the heat.
Although output of coal will be affected, it is not much of a worry for Coal India because it will help reduce the inventory pile-up at the state-owned company this year. Coal India had been burdened with about 58 million tonne of coal recently and another 38 million tonne at power plants as increased output coincided with easing demand from electricity generation companies.
"Coal India subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields, headquartered in Odisha, has been asked by the government to suspend production and loading during the day - between 11 am and 4 pm. Shifts have been adjusted accordingly," a senior Coal India official said. "In other states, we are going slow on production in an effort to beat the heat. Plus, we are also facing shortage of storage space. This has prompted us to find ways and means of pushing more coal to consumers."
Mahanadi Coalfields accounted for a quarter of Coal India's output of 536.5 million tonne in the year ended March 2016. Subsidiaries Eastern Coalfields, Central Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal have been staggering shifts to avoid work during the hottest times of the day at its opencast mines in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Shifts scheduled from 6 am now start an hour earlier and around noon, equipment is idled and lunch breaks are extended.
The bulk of Coal India's output is extracted from opencast mines, which are more affected by heat than underground mines, where temperatures are mostly controlled.
Titlagarh in Odisha recorded the highest maximum temperature of 46.5°C in the plains of the country, the India Meteorological Department said in a bulletin for the week ended April 20 on its website. Heat wave and severe heat wave conditions prevailed at isolated places over Gangetic West Bengal and Odisha on some days, it said.
The extreme heat is followed by the monsoon, which usually starts in June, when Coal India faces the problem of water logging due to heavy rainfall. Production of coal starts to peak only after the four month monsoon season.
