Forty-five Indian coal plants are running on less than three days of fuel

Forty-five coal-fired power stations in India were on critically low fuel as of 25 August, according to Central Electricity Authority figures cited by Reuters. A plant is counted as critical when stock is below 25 percent of the required inventory or when the coal on site would last fewer than three days. The same list stood at 31 plants at the end of July. Forty of the 45 run on domestic coal.

A day later the National Power Portal put the count at 46 plants with 63.72 gigawatts of capacity, more than 28 percent of India's roughly 224 GW of operating coal plant. Stocks at those stations ranged from zero days to five. Toranagallu in Ballari, which burns imported coal, was at zero. Sasan Ultra Mega, which has a captive mine, was at one day.

Why the piles shrank in August

BigMint said plant-end coal fell 19 percent from end-July to 30.95 million tonnes by 25 August, equal to about ten days of burn against twelve days in July. Between 1 and 23 August stocks dropped 15.5 percent because receipts lagged consumption. S&P Global Commodities had 34.04 million tonnes on 18 August, 11 days of burn and 55 percent of the normative requirement, and 34.5 percent below the 51.97 million tonnes on the same date a year earlier.

Rain in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh slowed mining and rail loading. An NTPC official told Reuters some stations needed five or six rakes a day and were getting half that. The same week the country was living through a weak, uneven monsoon linked to El Niño. Heat kept air-conditioners on. Crisil Intelligence said power demand in April-July rose 9.1 percent from a year earlier, after a 0.5 percent fall in the year-ago period. July demand was 171 billion units, the highest for any month on the firm's series. Thermal plants burned a record 3.12 million tonnes a day in July.

What the ministry has asked

A power ministry official told Reuters that some stations have been told to delay planned maintenance until the fuel position eases. That keeps megawatts on the bar at the cost of pushing overhauls into a later window. It does not create coal that is sitting in a flooded pit or on a blocked siding.

System-wide cover of ten days is not a blackout figure. The risk sits in the tail: the 45 plants that are already inside three days, and the imported-coal units that cannot buy a cargo fast enough when a domestic rake fails. Peak evening load in a humid week will test those stations first.

India still draws most of its electricity from coal. Renewable output has grown, but it does not cover a July night when the monsoon has failed to cool the northern plains. The August drawdown is the arithmetic of that fact. Burn rose. Trains and mines did not keep up. The buffer that looked adequate in June is now a short list of plants hoping the rain eases and the rakes arrive.