The country is on the brink of a major power crisis as several power plants are running out of coal stocks. The number of thermal power plants which have less than seven days of coal stocks left has shot up to 56 this week from 52 last week, official figures showed on Wednesday.

The stock levels are at the lowest since mid-2012, when large swathes of the country had to go without power plunging millions of homes in darkness.

An NTPC official said the situation is very critical in at least six of its 23 thermal power plants across the country. "We have stocks of less than a day at our plants at Badarpur, Dadri and Jhajjar all of which feed Delhi and NCR," the official disclosed. Public sector NTPC is the biggest power producer in the country.

FUEL SHORTAGE

"Most of our plants are running 25-30 per cent below their normal capacity. We are not sure by when the situation will normalise. We have many western power projects not working and that is adding to the power crisis," the NTPC official added. Plants are running short of the fuel due to lower supplies from Coal India (CIL), which accounts for 80 per cent of India's coal production. The quality of coal supplied to the power plants has also been an issue. Imported coal has to be mixed with domestic coal to fire the plants as the poor quality of Indian coal tends to damage the plants.

Investments in washeries to upgrade the quality of Indian coal has also been tardy. The situation worsens in the monsoon months as the evacuation of coal from the mines slows down due to the rains.

However, CIL claims that it cannot to be blamed for stocks at power plants dropping to critical levels. A high plant load factor (PLF) and delay related to coal imports were responsible for the problem, it said.

Coal fired thermal plants account for over two-thirds of the country's power generation capacity. Senior officials point out that as many as 12 major power projects entailing an investment of Rs36,000 crore and having a total generation capacity of 7,230 MW are stranded due to a shortage of coal. Besides a power generation capacity of 42,480 MW commissioned in the country after 2009 is presently entitled to only 65 per cent of their Letter of Assurance (LoA) commitment.

The shortage of coal has increased the dependence on imports. Union power and coal minister Piyush Goyal will meet state power ministers on September 9 ahead of his meeting with private and public power producers later this month amid pressure from power generating companies to hike power tariffs from the state utilities as compensation for the costlier fuel.

Interestingly, the meeting also coincides the day when the Supreme Court is expected to take a final decision on its August 25 judgment declaring illegal all coal blocks allocated from 1993 to 2010.