India: Govt says coal shortage impeding growth plans

A coal shortage has forced India to delay plans to expand its electricity production by nearly 50 percent, a minister said on Thursday, as power supply bottlenecks threaten to undermine the country’s economic growth.

The government has been unable to allocate coal to new power plants that are meant to generate more than 60 gigawatts of additional electricity, Power Secretary Anil Razdan told Reuters. Two-thirds of India’s power generation is fuelled by coal.
“In the last year, no new linkages (allotments of coal) have been given,” Razdan said on the sidelines of a conference. He did not say how long the power projects had been delayed.

Already plagued by power outages that regularly affect residential supply due to a lack of generating capacity or poor transmission networks, officials now fear that a coal shortage may soon become an even bigger threat.

China has faced a similar problem this year, with electricity output crippled due to low coal stocks, plus soaring fuel prices.

Reuters