India is considering imports to bridge the shortfall in coal production that is threatening to halt some of its 22 coal-based power plants.

"The power sector will have to adjust to import of coal henceforth," a senior power ministry official said Thursday on the sidelines of a news conference.

According to Power Minister P.M. Sayeed, "The shortage has arisen due to the power plants raising their generation capacity utilisation from 68 percent to 75 percent and above."
 
The shortage has led to the closure of Orissa-based Talcher power plant's one 500 MW unit for the last four days.

As many as six of the 22 thermal power plants are facing critical coal shortage and have stocks for less than four days against a desired back-up for a fortnight, a power ministry official said.

Seven other power plants have stocks of less than a week.

As against the requirement of 18 million tonnes of reserve stocks required by the 22 plants, the availability June 5 was only 9.66 million tonnes.

During 2004-05, of the import orders of nine million tonnes of coal placed, around 2.1 million tonnes imported by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) have been received only in April.

"But due to problems of port congestion or lack of railway wagons, the stocks are not moving as fast as desired. This has put further pressure on the power plants," the official said.

"The situation is not expected to improve in the next six to seven months."

This year India requires 317 million tonnes of coal whereas a shortfall of 13.25 million tonnes is expected despite the coal ministry's efforts to step up mining. The shortfall is expected to be more acute during the monsoon season from June to September.

State-owned NTPC is expected to import 3.98 million tonnes of coal this year.

Despite having one of the largest coal reserves, Indian coal is not of high quality as it contains over 30 percent ash. According to experts, the cost of import is offset by the better coal quality.