Domestic coal-based thermal power plants across the country are expected to report combined coal stocks of 55 million tonnes (MT) on March 31, 2025, compared to 47 MT recorded a year ago, official sources told FE. Though these are comfortable levels and sufficient to avert any disruptions in the running of the plants, the current stocks are lower than the normative requirement at this point time, which is 67.29 MT.
The coal ministry is working towards ensuring adequate coal supply to the power sector amid the rising demand for power and is optimistic of registering a 6-7% growth in coal production in the upcoming fiscal.
“When we started this year (FY25), coal stocks at power plants stood at 47 million tonnes as on April 1, 2024. We expect to close the year with 55 MT of coal stocks as on March 31, 2025. We have supplied more to the power sector than required,” the official said.
The official also highlighted that while there is depletion of stock towards the end of the year, the country’s thermal power plants will still maintain a higher stock of coal from last year.
“We always see a depletion of around 17 MT-18 MT around October. We touched a minimum stock of 30 MT in October last year. So when we compare it to this year, we will still have 38 MT coal stock after the depletion, which will again be more than last year,” said the official.
The government has projected coal production to reach 1.13 billion tonnes in the upcoming financial year 2025-26, according to the sources. For the current fiscal 2024-25, the government has set a target of 1.08 billion tonnes of coal output. As of March 20, the country has already surpassed the 1 billion tonnes production mark, 11 days ahead of the previous fiscal year’s coal production of 997.83 million tonnes.
Of the 1.13 billion tonnes for FY26, the coal ministry has projected 203 million tonnes of coal to be produced by captive mines. So far in FY25, the country’s captive and commercial mines have produced 191 million tonnes of coal, surpassing this year’s target of 170 million tonnes, as per official data.
Analysts noted that the availability of coal stocks has improved since last year and is expected to further increase. “The ability of the sector to utilize the imported coal based plants is also in a good situation,” Vikram V, vice-president & sector head, corporate ratings, Icra had said.
The government is expecting the peak demand for power to cross 270 gigawatt (GW) in FY26. To meet the anticipated rise in power consumption, the power sector has placed a demand for 906 MT of coal for FY26 to the coal ministry compared to 874 MT in FY25.
The coal ministry is also expecting coal dispatches to grow by 6% on year in the financial year starting April 1, as per sources.
“At this point of time, we have some 90 MT of coal at the mines’ end and 54 MT at power plants. We have a total of 183 MT of coal including that in transit which is equivalent to 73 days of requirement,” the official said.
As per data from national power portal, coal stocks at domestic coal-based power plants stood at 54.2 million tonnes as on March 27.
India’s peak demand for power that has been rising at a compound annual growth rate of 6% is now expected to grow at a CAGR of 7% in the next five years owing to increased economic activity and setting up of new industries, Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairperson of the Central Electricity Authority had said.
The CEA expects the country to add 43 GW of power capacity in the fiscal ending March 2025 which should be able to meet the incremental power demand next year. Of the total capacity, Prasad expects 10 GW of coal-based capacity, 30 GW of solar & wind capacity, 3 GW of hydro, and another 700 MW of nuclear capacity to be added.
The power ministry has issued directions to imported-coal based plants to operate and generate power to their full capacity till April 2025, under Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
Last year, the power ministry took several measures including the imposition of Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003, guiding all imported coal based power plants to operate and generate power to their full capacity and expedition of new capacities. In collaboration to this, the coal ministry had also stepped up its efforts with increased coal production in order to ensure adequate supply of coal to thermal power plants. The peak demand last year touched 250 GW.