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By Nidhi Verma
NEW DELHI, Sept 11 (Reuters) - A shortage of coal has delayed
power projects which will add more than 60,000 megawatts to
India's generating capacity, Power Secretary Anil Razdan said on
Thursday.
The scarcity has already hit existing thermal power stations,
cut India's electricity supply by 2 percent and has forced firms
like Tata Power <TTPW.BO>, Reliance Energy <RLEN.BO> and National
Aluminium Co <NALU.BO> to look for coal mines abroad.
The shortage of electricity is also forcing companies and
households to use diesel-fired generators, which in turn helped
lift domestic diesel sales by 18 percent earlier this year and
forced state refiners to import the fuel.
Razdan said the government was unable to allot coal for new
power projects because of the shortage.
"In the last one year, no new linkages (allotments) have been
given," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference.
State-run Coal India Ltd, the country's biggest coal
producer, will debut as a coal importer this fiscal year with
plans to buy 4 million tonnes to fuel small units and power
producers facing shortages.
Coal-fired plants account for 65 percent of India's power
generation capacity of 145.6 gigawatts, which lagged demand in
Asia's third-largest economy by nearly 16 percent in July.
India's coal demand is expected to rise to 731 million tonnes
by March 2012, while domestic production will meet only 680
million tonnes of that figure, according to government estimates.
State-run NALCO <NALU.BO> was forced to cut output at its
alumina refinery in July because its coal supplies had dwindled.
The company said last month it planned to import 130,000
tonnes of coal as it has not been able to build adequate stocks
of the fuel to keep its operations steady.
State Trading Corp of India Ltd <STCI.BO> issued an import
tender late last month for 8.25 million tonnes of coal for its
client NTPC Ltd <NTPC.BO>, India biggest power generation
company.
(Editing by Mark Williams)
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Keywords: INDIA POWER/COAL