Apart from Badarpur, Delhi's peak load of nearly 2500mw is supplied by the DVB's own 278mw Indraprashta and 135mw Rajghat units, NTPC's 849mw Dadri TPS and the northern grid, particularly NTPC's 1000mw Rihand station.

Badarpur has a total coal linkage of 3,60,000 tonnes per month with Central Coalfields Ltd and Eastern Coalfields Ltd, two loss-making subsidiaries of CIL. CCL has already reduced supplies to Badarpur and ECL may start doing it any day. Badarpur has only two days' coal stock.

CIL, under pressure from losses sustained by ECL and CCL, wants Badarpur to pay at least the April bill, worth Rs 30.60 crore, if it wants to continue getting coal. Badarpur says the DVB has not released the requiredfunds.

In April, Badarpur is supposed to pay Rs 18.6 crore to ECL and Rs 12 crore to CCL. But till April 21, it had paid Rs 9.5 crore and Rs 4.5 crore respectively. Thus it still has an April outstanding of Rs 16.6 crore.

This is in addition to the accumulated dues of Rs 525 crore till March 31, 1999. Of this, Rs 207 crore is clear outstanding and the rest disputed.

"Our intention is not to stop coal supplies. We are ready to continue supplies to all the power utilities as per linkages. But they should arrange funds for it. Badarpur should pay balance Rs 9.1 crore April dues to ECL and Rs 7.5 crore to CCL immediately in order to ensure coal despatch from the two coal companies," a senior CIL official said.

Coal stocks at the other thermal plants supplying to Delhi have also gone down considerably over the last few days. Dadri's stock, for example, has fallen from 1,69,000 tonnes to 1,41,000 tonnes.

Badarpur had earlier decided to improve the plant load factor, or the ratio of generation to plantcapacity. Badarpur's PLF has gone up from 72.4 per cent in 1997-98 to 79 per cent in 1998-99 against the national average of 64.7 per cent. Dadri has a PLF of 91.4 per cent, the highest among the NTPC plants.

Since the time Badarpur was set up in the early seventies, it had a long-term linkage with Bharat Coking Coal Ltd, another loss-making subsidiary of CIL. Coal was supplied from BCCL's Jharia coalfields.

On January 1 this year, the Union government decided that all power utilities in the national capital region should use low-ash coal to check pollution in the area. So CIL is now sending coal from ECL and CCL. It also sends washed coal to Badarpur.