NEW DELHI: The coal shortage at power plants are of their own making since state utilities and private power plants ignored repeated warnings from the coal and power ministries to begin building up inventories, even as the total generation capacity that was switched off due to low fuel stocks shrank 45% from 11 GW (gigawatts) to 6 GW on improved supplies from Coal India.
According to official communications seen by TOI, the coal ministry had shot off letters as early as February 25, asking state utilities and private power producers to lift as per allocations. In one letter, coal secretary Anil Jain had even hinted that if coal was not lifted, fire may break out at Coal India’s pithead stockpiles due to self-ignition, a typical feature of coal.
This was followed by a series of letters from power secretary Alok Kumar and additional secretary Vivek Kumar Dewangan to officials of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan — all states that have warned of load-shedding.

These letters essentially warned them about rising power demand leading to faster drawdown of fuel stocks and the monsoon impact on mining, which required power plants to build up stocks, and clear dues of Coal India for uninterrupted fuel supply.
Coal minister Pralhad Joshi himself wrote to Maharashtra power minister Nitin Raut as recently as September 28, explaining the situation arising from heavy rains in coal-bearing states and assuring of coal supplies through alternative mode.
The utilities, however, refused to lift coal adequately because, it appears, they did not anticipate a 12.7% surge in power demand, did not have money or huge outstandings against Coal India and also wanted to avoid “carrying cost” of inventories. For example, Mahagenco on June 15 asked Coal India to reduce despatch.
So by the time intense rains in September-end and the beginning of this month disrupted mining and loading operations, power plants were already scraping the bottom for fuel amid a surge in demand as economic activities gathered pace.
Now that rains are over and mines have been dewatered, coal supply is gradually exceeding consumption, which will help rebuild fuel stocks at power plants.