NEW DELHI: The government is worried that inadequate coal supplies to power projects under construction could delay India’s power generation plans, thereby derailing the country’s economic growth. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has shot off missives to the ministries of coal and power to ensure adequate fuel supplies to power projects lined up for commissioning in the next four to five years. This assumes importance amid the raging controversy over coal mines allocated to private firms and fresh details that show the government’s own departments and ministries are delaying critical projects with assured supplies from stateowned Coal India Limited (CIL) and its subsidiaries. Investments worth R1,24,745 crore are stuck due to various regulatory, procedural and environmental hurdles, banks told the finance ministry last week. According to the power ministry, nearly 66,230MW out of the 84,756MW of proposed power capacity addition planned in the next few years is coalbased, but fuel supply agreements (FSAs) have been signed only for 16,000MW. “Power utilities will require 842 million tonnes of coal in the terminal year of the 12th Plan (2016-17) and what is likely to be available is 682 million tonnes, which is also an optimistic scenario,” said a senior power ministry official on condition of anonymity.
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