India could face as long as six months battling to ensure coal-fired power plants have enough fuel as the nation’s energy crisis escalates.
More than half the nation’s plants are on alert for outages after surging electricity demand and a slump in local coal output eroded stockpiles. Power stations had an average of four days’ worth of coal at the end of last month, the lowest level in years, and down from 13 days at the start of August.
“I don’t know whether I will be comfortable in the next five to six, four to five months,” Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh was quoted as telling The Indian Express in an interview published Tuesday.
