Power Crisis: India’s power crisis to worsen further due to states’ laxity on coal imports: Power Ministry

Laxity on the part of states in importing coal and resolving contractual issues with power plants could lead to the power crisis worsening in the coming months, power ministry officials said. There was marginal relief on Saturday as demand dropped over the weekend, but the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned that heatwave conditions will continue over northwest and central India until May 2.

India’s peak power demand breached all records to touch 207 GW on Friday. Official data showed coal stock availability of 21 million tonnes (MT), enough for nine days, at power stations.

“Despite the Union power ministry’s intervention, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are slow in resolving issues with imported coal-based projects and are putting undue pressure on domestic coal supplies,” an official told ET.

Against the 22 MT of imported coal that states need to have ordered for blending with domestic coal to ease pressure on local supplies before the June-September monsoon, so far orders for only about 5 MT have been placed by the generation utilities of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab.

States said they either could not afford costlier coal or logistics was proving a challenge.

A senior Telangana official said imported coal prices at a record high level of about $288 a tonne (HBA Index) were out of reach for the state. An official in Karnataka said transportation of imported coal would require more railway rakes, a shortage of which is currently the main reason for lower inventories at power stations. Andhra Pradesh cancelled two coal import tenders due to ‘exorbitant prices’, an official said.

Another power ministry official, however, rejected this, saying the states had never expressed difficulties over railway wagon availability for imports at review meetings. “In fact, the Railways is waiting for rakes from ports. The states are wrongly blaming the Centre for power shortages and have still not learnt from their mistakes,” he said.

States Blame Scarcity

Some states such as Rajasthan and Maharashtra have blamed coal scarcity for the power crisis. However, the Centre said these states had not cleared Coal India Ltd’s dues and built up stocks. State generation companies collectively owe ₹7,918 crore to Coal India.

Discoms of states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh haven’t paid power plants, which in turn could not buy coal, he said. India’s northwest and central regions have recorded their hottest April in 122 years, with average maximum temperatures touching 35.9 and 37.78 degrees Celsius, respectively. The high temperatures were due to scanty rainfall in March and April, IMD director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.