Tata Power management had earlier indicated that if they do not find a resolution for the Mundra Power plant issue by March 10, they would have to shut down the power plant. However, on March 9, the management suggested that normal operations would continue at the plant till March 20, this after a meeting was held with the Union Power Secretary.

Praveer Sinha, MD and CEO of Tata Power said “We had informed the states that we would be shutting down the Mundra plant from March 10. There was an emergency meeting which was called by Union Power Secretary on March 9 wherein all the five states power secretaries were there and during the discussions it emerged that they are trying to find viable solution and we expect that they should be in a position to come with a solution which is acceptable to all. We expect some decision on this before March 20. We had told them that if it does not happen then we will have to close the unit from March 21 onwards,” he said.

“It looks like there is a deep interest in resolving this issue and the whole thing has now got precipitated because of the closure notice and we do expect that this will possibly happen much sooner in next one week to ten days,” he added.

“We have already informed that we are in a very difficult financial condition. So, until and unless this is resolved once and for all, we would not be able to sustain its operation. We will plan the coal supply based on that,” said Sinha.

Talking about coal supplies in the wake of coronavirus spread, he said, “We have seen coal prices have not changed much in last two months. The demand has increased because many of the coal mines in China are not operating and the Chinese power plants have been taking all the coal that is available in Australia and Indonesia. So there is good demand over there and that is why the prices remain at USD 67-68."

"The second issue is that we saw some increase in consumption in the country. Both in January and February, there was an increase in consumption and now with summer coming in, we expect the increase in consumption to continue. We definitely expect that things will brighten up in next 2-3 months and there would again be a huge consumption increase that would happen in the country.”