New Delhi, Oct 4 (IANS): With the festival season round the corner, Coal India Ltd has been directed by the government to scale up dispatch to thermal power plants.

In a review meeting presided over by Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi, coal companies were advised to enhance supplies to thermal power plants to help them meet the growing electricity demand in the coming few weeks.

During the first half of 2022-23, Coal India had dispatched 285.6 million tonnes of dry fuel to the power sector, which is a growth of almost 17 per cent over previous year.

As a result, coal stock at thermal power plants is now three times more than last year's stock, official sources said.

The production and offtake strategy for the second half of 2022-23 were also reviewed in the meeting.

Coal India Ltd's (CIL) production during the first half of the current fiscal was 299 million tonnes.

The meeting was crucial in the light of the fact that exactly a year ago, power plants had faced acute shortage of coal, as due to excessive rains, dry fuel could not be transported to them on time.

Many states at that time had faced prospects of blackouts.

Though there is adequate coal supply with power plants this year, Government wants to ensure that there is no repeat of last year's situation and hence the meeting was held, sources said.