Oct 15, 2026 13:05 pm IST

Opinion | India Has Enough Coal. So Why Are Power Plants Running Short? A 76 Million 'Crunch'

As of October 5, as many as 82 of the 191 thermal plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority were in the 'critical' category

Deepanshu Mohan, Ankur Singh Deepanshu Mohan Columnist Ankur Singh Columnist

Deepanshu Mohan Columnist

Ankur Singh Columnist

India's power sector is confronting a paradox that is becoming increasingly relevant to the broader macroeconomy. Coal stocks at thermal power plants are critically low, even as millions of tonnes of coal remain available at pitheads. Electricity demand is rising rapidly, yet the constraint is not simply generating capacity. It is the ability to move fuel to where it is needed. At the same time, India is entering a potentially more difficult agricultural season with fertiliser costs and import vulnerabilities rising sharply amid the West Asian conflict.

Taken separately, neither is necessarily a crisis. Taken together, they point to something more consequential. India's macroeconomic buffers remain substantial, but the supply chains that allow those buffers to translate into economic activity are becoming more fragile.

The coal data is the clearest warning.

As of October 5, as many as 82 of the 191 thermal plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority were in the 'critical' category, meaning stocks below 25% of the normative requirement or less than three days of generation. The count rose steadily from 31 plants at the end of July to 59 on September 9, to 74 on September 19, and 82 on September 27, and has since hovered in that range. Yet, Coal India was still reported to be holding around 76 million tonnes at its pitheads in late September.

This is not a typical shortage. It is a distribution problem. India has been trying to boost coal production for years, assuming that more coal at the mine would lead to more coal at the power plant. The September-October episode reveals the fallacy of that belief. When the resource is present, but the capacity of the railway, weather conditions, loading, and dispatch may become the limiting factor, then that means that inventory at the plant level is more economically significant than aggregate production. Coal at the........

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