In a tacit acknowledgment of the grave crisis being faced by the country’s power sector owing to paucity of coal, the Centre has asked the state governments to step up imports of the key fuel for thermal power, notwithstanding its elevated prices in the global markets. It is unclear how quickly imports could be contracted but use of imported fuel could definitely inflate the cost of power to discoms; whether the consumers would feel the pinch depends on whether and how much of the extra cost the discoms could be allowed to pass on to different categories of consumers. Of course, industrial and commercial consumers will be the first to be subjected to any tariff increase.
