New Delhi: Is India’s coal ministry confused about the reasons behind the coal shortage plaguing the power sector? The ministry has given two contradictory explanations for the prevailing coal shortage while deposing before two house panels.

While deposing before the standing committee on energy recently, it denied that there was any shortage of coal in the country and instead blamed power companies for the depleted fuel stocks at generating stations.

When asked about inadequate fuel stock, the ministry cited reasons such as a failure on the part of power companies to lift allocated coal supplies for shipment via road and rail and delays in payment for supplied coal.

“In regard to shortfall in supplies of coal to power sector, the coal ministry has stated that it was due to various reasons such as less filing of rail programmes and less payments from the power utilities, inability of the power utilities to lift coal offered by road mode etc,” says the committee report tabled in parliament recently.

“They (coal ministry) have further stated that CIL had adequate availability of coal and coal stock to meet the requirement of power sector,” the report added.

However, the same ministry has given a totally different explanation for coal shortage facing the industry while deposing before the standing committee on coal and steel.

Before the second committee, it admitted that there was a nearly 30 million tonnes shortfall in CIL production during April-January against the target set for the period. “When asked what was reason for the shortfall in achievement of the production target set for the year 2017-18, ministry in a written reply stated that total coal production by CIL up to January 2018 was 440.623 million tonnes against the progressive target of 469.897 million tonnes. So there is a shortfall of 29.274 million tonnes against the target,” says the report of the panel.

As reported by The Wire recently, the central electricity authority (CEA) has stopped publishing daily power generation and coal supply reports, in a move that appears aimed at saving the government from embarrassment.

As per the last generation report published by the CEA for March 6, 71,272 MW out of total 1,38,295 MW coal-based capacity had fuel stocks of less than 7 days (critical shortage) against the normative requirement of 15-30 days. Of the 71,272 MW, 41,865 MW, or 30% of total capacity, had fuel stocks of less than 4 days (supercritical shortage).

Coal surplus narrative

When coal shortage became critical last October, the coal ministry blamed power plants for it rather than admit inadequate availability.

“The sentiment that is being created by some people is just to meet their own ends … so as to get more and more coal. This is not right. This sentiment should not be created. There is no shortage of coal,” coal secretary Susheel Kumar told reporters at the time.

“The root cause of all this problem is that many power plants have not followed the CEA guidelines of stocking coal for 22 days. This is not the Ministry of Coal instruction. This is the Ministry of Power’s instructions,” Kumar explained.

The secretary said that if power plants do not stock dry fuel as per the guidelines of the CEA, then during monsoons there would be disruptions and they should face it.

“Now some of the Chief Secretaries and some of the Chief Ministers are also raising this issue. I have written to all of them saying when we mentioned in the month of June that you stock as per the CEA guidelines (as) there is a likelihood of disruption in monsoon and there was also looming threat of employees (Coal India) strike call….they didn’t do it,” Kumar said.

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal, who once promised to end India’s dependence on imported coal, has not said anything on the prevailing fuel crisis. “We want to completely stop the import of thermal coal in the next two to three years,” Goyal had famously told the maiden Maritime India Summit in April 2015.

“We do not wish to import coal from anywhere in the world. We have sufficient coal capacity in our country,” Goyal – who continues to helm the coal ministry – said June last year.

Earlier too, when electricity prices soared above Rs 10 a unit at power exchanges last September due to coal crisis, Goyal had maintained silence.

But in February 2018, Goyal broke his silence and clarified that Coal India (CIL) had slowed production on expectation of weak demand. The crisis then bloomed when demand picked up suddenly, he said.

Fuels stocks of nearly a quarter of country’s coal-based plants had depleted to critically low levels as of October 17 last year but rather than accept the reality, the coal ministry had then defended the narrative of surplus coal availability.