State-owned Coal India today said its coal supply to power plants increased by 9.2 per cent to 290.59 million tonnes (MTs) in the first eight months of the current fiscal, driven by high loading of rakes.

"CIL's (Coal India) coal supplies to power utilities of the country posted a healthy 9.2 per cent growth at 290.59 MTs during April-November 2017 continuing the upward spiral," the world's largest coal miner said in a statement.

This translates to a robust 24.59 MTs increase in absolute terms compared to 266 MT during April-November 2016, the public sector firm said.

The growth in coal supplies to thermal power stations last month was around 9 per cent higher at 40.92 MTs against 37.56 MTs supplied in November last year.

"The increased supplies saw the coal stocks at power stations going up by over 2 MT to around 10 MT at the end of November 2017 compared to closing stock of 7.9 MT, October 2017," the statement said.

The miner said it is gearing to to step up the supplies even further to pull the power stations out of the critical situation.

Coal supplies to non-power sector is gradually increasing with stabilisation of supplies to power stations, it added.

CIL registered 8.1 per cent growth in overall coal supplies for April-November period, maintaining the steady flow of the dry fuel to its customers with a staggering 27.69 MT increase in absolute terms compared to same period last year.

The PSU as a whole loaded 191.7 rakes per day to coal- based generating units of the country during April-November 2017 compared to 179.5 rakes same period last year.

The coal output during April-November period at 329.30 MT registered a growth of 1.8 per cent compared to 323.53 MT produced in the same period last year.

"Coal production grew by 2.6 per cent in the month of November 2017 with CIL producing 51.29 MT compared to 50 MT in November 2016," it said.