Power crisis unravels fast, even as blame game continues

Even as it’s increasingly clear that India’s power crisis is only turning worse with every passing day and it has started disrupting a nascent economic recovery, the key stakeholders are hamstrung. Many states are finding it difficult to step up their fuel purchases though the coal stocks with their power plants are depleting fast, owing to logistical and financial issues.

If the Centre is blaming some states, including Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, for “not living up to their commitments,” state governments say coal supplies to their power plants have been grossly inadequate in recent weeks; some are even going slow on coal imports, citing the prohibitively high landed cost of the fuel, at $250-290/tonne, four to five times the year-ago level.