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.
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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.
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