India’s Rail-Fed Coal Plants Run to Three-Day Stocks

96 of 191 coal-fired power plants in India held less than three days of fuel on 19 October, Central Electricity Authority data showed. That is half the fleet, up from 60 plants in mid-September, and total stocks at the stations have fallen about 5 percent since the start of October.

The coal is not missing from the country. It is missing from the yards that sit far from the mines, the ones that wait on railway rakes, after the government set aside a plan to force plants to blend in imported coal.

Half of the Coal Fleet Is on Three-Day Cover

Daily peak demand in 2026 has been running about 45 to 50 gigawatts higher than a year earlier, CEA Chairperson Ghanshyam Prasad said, after a weak monsoon cut hydro output and pushed more of the load onto thermal units. Coal-fired generation rose 13.3 percent in September from a year earlier, while hydropower fell 20 percent, and the gap between demand and supply still widened to 560 million kilowatt-hours, the highest since August 2023.

India now takes nearly 55 percent of its electricity from non-fossil sources, but plants are not paired with batteries at anything like the scale of the solar build. When the sun drops, evening cooling load stays high, and coal has to cover the peak, so yards burn faster than rakes can refill them.

THE 19 OCTOBER POSITION

• Fleet on three-day cover: 96 of 191 monitored coal plants held fuel for less than three days of generation.
• The climb: That count was 60 plants in mid-September.
• October draw: Total stocks at power stations have fallen about 5 percent since the start of the month.
• The unmet load: September’s 560 million kWh gap was the widest since August 2023, even after coal output jumped 13.3 percent.

The ministry that oversees mines still describes the “critical stock” tag as an early warning, not a trip switch. “A plant appearing on this list is, by design, an early-warning entry and not an indication that it has run out of coal or is at imminent risk of shutting down,” the Ministry of Coal said. The 19 October print used a harder test, less than three days of fuel, and half the fleet failed it.

Pithead Stockpiles and Empty Inland Yards

The International Energy Agency, in its Coal Mid-Year Update 2026, still sees Indian output hitting a record 1,095 million tonnes in 2026, with Coal India Limited accounting for about three-quarters of national production. The same note said high pithead inventories have tempered output, and that Coal India reported lower figures in May because stocks at the mines stayed elevated. The company has been meeting orders by drawing those inventories down.

That is the split the 19 October print conceals. Coal can sit beside a mine in Jharkhand or Odisha and still leave a station in Haryana or Maharashtra on three-day cover, because the constraint is movement, not the seam. Congested lines from the eastern fields, slow wagon turns, and long hauls to inland generators regularly put deliveries behind the burn rate. In the monsoon, wet coal also slows unloading, so loaded rakes queue even when empty wagons are available.

The IEA still expects India’s thermal coal imports to ease to about 160 million tonnes in 2026 from 167 million tonnes in 2025, as Delhi tries to swap seaborne cargoes for domestic supply. That policy only works if the rakes actually arrive.

Why Inland Plants Ran Dry First

The authority’s daily plant-level coal stock report for 8 October, 11 days before the three-day count hit 96, showed where the shortfall sat. The 191 plants held 20.62 million tonnes against a required 61.17 million tonnes at 85 percent plant load, or about 6.6 days of coal versus a 20-day norm. They still burned more than they received that day, 2.73 million tonnes out versus 2.68 million tonnes in.

The CEA marks a plant critical when stock falls below 25 percent of the required level, a different test from the three-day print. On that 25 percent rule, 87 of the 191 plants were critical. Of those 87, 83 were non-pithead stations that take coal by rail, sea or road. The 18 pithead plants held 48 percent of their required stock, with four of them critical. The 158 non-pithead plants on domestic coal included 77 on the critical list, and together they held 14.61 million tonnes, 29 percent of the rulebook stock.

Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra Took the Hit

The shortage clustered in a few states, not across the mine belt.

WHERE THE SHORTAGE SAT ON 8 OCTOBER

West Bengal and Odisha sit on the coalfields; Haryana does not. All seven plants of Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd were critical, at 14 percent of required stock. All three plants of Haryana Power Generation Corporation Ltd were critical, at 13 percent. Maharashtra State Power Generation Company had six of its seven plants on the list, at 19 percent. State generation companies as a group had 32 critical plants and 30 percent of required stock. Central utilities had 18 critical plants at 32 percent, including 10 of NTPC’s 27 stations and six of seven joint-venture plants. Independent producers on domestic coal had 29 critical plants, with group stocks at 35 percent.

Some of the thinnest yards were also the hardest-run. GMR’s 600 MW Warora plant held 2 percent of required stock while running at 97 percent plant load. The 1,350 MW Amravati plant was at 3 percent, with plant load at 96 percent. Adani Power’s 3,300 MW Tiroda plant held 6 percent. At Haryana’s Panipat station, which was at 15 percent, no coal arrived on 8 October even as the plant burned 3,000 tonnes.

The Daily Report Named the Coal Companies

Against each critical plant, the CEA recorded the next step, and most of those steps pointed at suppliers and the rails, not at a missing seam.

WHAT THE CEA TOLD CRITICAL PLANTS

• Coal companies: For 67 of the 87 plants, it named one or more producers to meet the subgroup plan, with South Eastern Coalfields Ltd on 22 plants, Central Coalfields Ltd on 18, and Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd on 15.
• The rest of the CIL map: Northern Coalfields Ltd was named for 10 plants, Western Coalfields Ltd for seven, Bharat Coking Coal Ltd for six, and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd for four, with some plants assigned more than one supplier.
• Railways: Five plants, including Amravati and Tiroda, had the Railways named beside the coal company.
• Port stock: APPDCL’s Damodaram Sanjeevaiah plant held 14 percent of required stock on site while 349,000 tonnes of its coal sat at the loading port; Mettur-II and Tuticorin were listed with coal at port as well.
• Other routes: Six critical imported-coal plants were told to rebuild through cargoes; eight plants, including three of RRVUNL’s, were told to lift more from captive mines; two were told to move more coal by road.

Sixteen plants held less than a tenth of required stock. The geography of that list is the story: the empty yards are inland, and some of the coal meant for coastal stations is still on the dock.

Delhi Set Aside Forced Coal Imports

In early October 2021, 16 plants had zero stock and the fleet was down to about four days of coal. Delhi’s answer then was to tell domestic-coal stations to blend about 10 percent imported fuel, a step later credited with keeping stocks off zero in 2022. Officials discussed a similar blending order in recent weeks, then set it aside, as seaborne thermal prices sat at a three-year high and a weaker rupee made cargoes dearer. They asked Coal India to raise output and the Railways to keep rakes moving instead.

The government also ordered more than 100 captive coal plants to run at full load from 1 October through the end of the year. That puts more burn on a logistics chain already behind the grid plants. NTPC Chairperson Gurdeep Singh, speaking on 13 October, said coal-based generation had widened by around 10 percent, with an 18 percent rise that month, and that “it is difficult to maintain the coal stock.”

Hydro Output Fell 20 Percent in September

A weak monsoon is the other half of the burn. Hydropower generation fell 20 percent in September from a year earlier, CEA data showed, while coal-fired output rose 13.3 percent and still left a 560 million kWh gap, the widest since August 2023. Prasad has said demand has been running 45 to 50 gigawatts higher than a year earlier, and that the plants are not getting windows for scheduled maintenance because the stock is falling almost every day.

The IEA’s mid-year update, published in September, had already pencilled in that weather pattern. It said a strong El Niño can lift cooling load and cut hydro in India, and it put the country’s coal use up 4.2 percent to 1,353 million tonnes in 2026, reversing a 1 percent dip to 1,299 million tonnes in 2025, when a long monsoon had lifted hydro and cut cooling and farm demand. The agency also tied the global coal rebound, to 8.94 billion tonnes, up 1.2 percent, to the Middle East conflict and that El Niño. Almost no coal moves through the Strait of Hormuz, but dearer gas has pushed some power systems back onto coal, and India is one of the buyers that still treats domestic coal as the hedge.

Industrial demand is still rising in pig iron, direct-reduced iron and cement, the three largest coal-using sectors after power, so the mines are feeding furnaces as well as boilers. Solar keeps being added, more than 50 gigawatts of renewable capacity last financial year, on Prasad’s figures, but without storage it does not hold the evening peak. Coal does, and the yards show it.

The Mid-October Ease That Did Not Arrive

On 9 October the Ministry of Coal said daily supplies to the power sector were up around 36 percent from the September low, that October was averaging about 9 percent above September, and that peak demand should ease by mid-October as the monsoon receded. It asked for sustained loading of 465 to 475 rakes a day so stocks could rebuild before festive, winter and summer load. By 19 October, 96 plants were on three-day cover.

The ministry’s own later print, dated 12 October, is more precise on the days it covers, and it is not a rebuild.

THE STOCK AND RAKE CALENDAR

1. 29 September 2026: Domestic coal-based plant stocks stand at 18.932 million tonnes.
2. 1 to 10 October 2026: Rakes loaded to the power sector average 469 rakes a day in October, against 426 a day in September, about a 10 percent rise, with daily loading between 447 and 482 rakes.
3. 2 October 2026: Stocks rise 0.024 million tonnes, one of two accretion days in the month.
4. 4 to 6 October 2026: The 470-rake target is hit on three straight days, at 477, 470 and 472 rakes.
5. 8 October 2026: CEA shows 20.62 million tonnes at 191 plants, 87 of them critical on the 25 percent test, still burning 2.73 million tonnes against 2.68 million tonnes received.
6. 10 October 2026: Domestic coal-based stocks are 18.205 million tonnes, with a 0.017 million-tonne rise that day. September’s draw was about 7.28 million tonnes, 0.24 million tonnes a day; the first ten days of October drew 0.56 million tonnes, 0.06 million tonnes a day.
7. 19 October 2026: 96 of 191 plants hold less than three days of fuel, and total stocks at the stations are down about 5 percent since the start of the month.

Actual supply to the power sector averaged 2.49 million tonnes a day in those first ten days of October, against 2.21 million tonnes a day in September, and beat the 2.37 million-tonne daily plan on nine of the ten days. The ministry thanked Indian Railways in that note. The rakes moved. The rebuild did not start. Mid-October came, and the three-day list got longer.

Prasad Now Flags 150 Gigawatts of Extra Coal

Speaking on 13 October at the India Energy Summit, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Prasad said the country had first targeted about 97 gigawatts of additional coal capacity from a 2023 base, a path that pointed toward about 307 gigawatts of coal plant by 2034-35. Demand, he said, now argues for 105 gigawatts “or even 150 gigawatt from the reference date of 2023.” He also said India must add nuclear and pumped hydro beside coal, because solar and wind swing with the weather and storage is still thin.

We are very concerned about the enhancement of the fuel supply to these power plants because the stock is depleting almost every day. We are not finding time to put them on the maintenance cycle.

Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairperson, Central Electricity Authority, at the India Energy Summit

That 150-gigawatt figure is a planning number, not a sanction list, and it sits beside a year in which the IEA still has Coal India moderating growth because pithead stockpiles were too high in the spring. The live problem on 19 October is narrower. Inland stations that cannot see a mine from the gate are running on three-day cover, imported blending has been left on the table, and the ministry’s own note on 12 October said stock rebuilding had yet to commence. Festive load, then winter, then next summer, will hit those same yards first.