KalingaTimes Correspondent
Bhubaneswar: As crisis continues over short supply of coal to various industries, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention to make Mahanadi Coalfields Limited restore normal supply in supply of coal.

In a letter to Singh on Monday, the Chief Minister said that MCL should continue supplying coal to National Aluminium Company (NALCO) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to help these industries continue uninterrupted power generation.

Blaming the MCL authorities for not extending the rehabilitation and resettlement benefits to the people affected by coal mining, Patnaik said the public sector undertaking should go as per the State's R&R policy as the Centre was yet to adopt a new policy in this regard.

Extending R&R benefits to the families affected by the operations of MCL will go a long way in improving law and order situation in the region, Patnaik said.

MCL authorities, however, claimed that the crisis situation had been averted with supply of coal continuing to the industries from the Talcher coalfields during the past four days.

But reports reaching here indicate that both NTPC and NALCO may run into trouble as they did not have adequate stock of coal to cope with any crisis situation since MCL had not been able to resume full scale production of coal in Bharatpur due to agitation by the locals.