BRS Teams Inspect Telangana Thermal Plants Over Coal Shortage
BRS leaders visited four thermal power plants and the Singareni Collieries office, alleging coal shortages and quality issues are hurting power supply to farmers.
Teams of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders fanned out across Telangana on Thursday to inspect coal stocks and power generation at several thermal plants, amid reports of disrupted generation and protests by farmers demanding quality daytime power for agricultural pump-sets.
The teams visited the Yadadri Thermal Power Station at Dameracherla in Nalgonda district, the Kakatiya Thermal Power Project at Chelpur in Jayashankar-Bhupalapally district, the Kothagudem Thermal Power Station at Palvancha, and the Bhadradri Thermal Power Plant in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district. A separate team went to the Singareni Collieries corporate office in Hyderabad, staged a protest and submitted a memorandum on the coal supplies required by power stations.
Speaking after inspecting the Yadadri plant, former Energy Minister G. Jagadish Reddy said the State's power difficulties had returned to their pre-2014 position under Congress rule, affecting farm supply and causing standing crops to wither. He described the reasons cited by power utilities for the fall in generation as misleading, and alleged that Singareni was being made to sell good-quality coal to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. He also linked a missing stock of 40,000 tonnes of coal at Singareni's coal handling plants to the shortage faced by local generating stations.
A team led by MP Vaddiraju Ravichandra, which visited the Kothagudem station, said it held very low stocks of poor-quality G13 and G14 coal, even though G9 and G10 grades were available in some Singareni mines. He claimed that some Singareni laboratory officials had told him that G9 and G10 grade samples from the mines were present in the lab.
At the Kakatiya Thermal Power Project, a team led by Errabelli Dayakar Rao said the farm sector was not receiving even six hours of quality supply, leading to crop damage.
Party leaders Koppula Eshwar, T. Jeevan Reddy, K.P. Vivekanand, D. Sravan, Shambipur Raju, N. Diwakar Rao and TGBKS leaders Raji Reddy and Surender met Singareni Collieries Chairman and Managing Director Buddhaprakash Jyothi and sought reasons for the fall in production from 70 million tonnes to 58 million tonnes, and for the supply of poor-quality coal to generating stations in Telangana while quality coal went to power stations in other States.
Mr. Eshwar alleged that the State government's dues of ₹52,000 crore to Singareni were also a major reason for the decline in coal production, which fell by about 17% in 2025-26 compared with the previous year.