The Narendra Modi government has started pressing the panic buttons after a blazing heat wave rippled across the country — with the misery of the people in at least five states exacerbated by an acute electricity shortage as coal inventories sank to critical levels in 106 of the 173 thermal power plants.

On Friday, the Indian Railways swung into action and cancelled 753 trips by mail, express and passenger trains in a desperate attempt to prioritise the movement of coal rakes.

At the same time, the Centre pleaded with the state governments of coal-starved power plants to start importing coal — the second time it has made such a request in recent weeks.

The railways said the train cancellations were temporary and the services would be restored as soon as the situation improved. Railway Board documents showed that 713 train trips had been cancelled in the South East Central Railway and 40 trips in Northern Railway.

The move was designed also to blunt criticism from the power ministry, which has blamed the power crisis on the shortage of rakes for coal transport. Earlier this week, power secretary Alok Kumar had said the availability of coal rakes was 6 per cent lower than required.

The train cancellations do not really amount to much – and the move is a weak stab at a persistent problem. Railway officials said the trip cancellations involved only 42 trains: 34 in the south and eight in the north. They added that they were taking steps on a “war footing” to cut down the time to transport coal to power plants.

Worst in 6 years

The blame game is likely to ratchet up quickly as data revealed that electricity supply fell short of demand by 1.88 billion units, or 1.6 per cent, during the first 27 days of April – making it the worst monthly shortfall in over six years, according to data gleaned from the grid regulator Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (Posoco).

Andhra Pradesh has faced the worst peak-hour shortages, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana.

From Jammu and Kashmir to Andhra Pradesh, consumers are facing power cuts ranging from two to eight hours a day.

“So… coal messed up to the extent that half the country has to deal with major power cuts in this awful summer. Winning elections is one thing – governance quite another,” Twitter user Ajay Kamath posted as large swathes of India sweltered in the heat wave.

The Opposition Congress said the coal shortage in power plants during a scorching summer was one of the worst examples of mismanagement and bad governance.

Party spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said there was no shortage of stocks in the coalfields and that the Centre’s failure to provide the logistics for coal supply had created the problem.

“Power plants with the capacity to produce 72,074MW electricity are shut down. Of the 173 plants, 106 have barely 25 per cent of the required coal. The demand for coal is 22 lakh tonnes daily and the supply is 16 lakh tonnes,” he said on Friday.

Vallabh uttered a slogan: “Mehngai full, batti gul (Inflation rages, light departs).”

Rahul Gandhi wrote: “I requested Modi Government on April 20, 2022 to stop running the bulldozer of hate and start the power plants. Today, the entire country is reeling under a crisis because of electricity and coal crisis.

“I am saying again. This power crisis will finish off small industries and that

will aggravate the unemployment crisis. Children won’t

be able to tolerate this dreadful heat. The lives of patients admitted to hospitals are at risk.”

The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) said in a statement: “The power outages across the country due to coal shortage are due to the lack of coordination amongst the coal ministry, railway ministry and power ministry. Every ministry claims that they are not responsible for the present mess in the power sector.”

AIPEF spokesperson V.K. Gupta said the central ministries had been trying to duck responsibility and were shifting the blame to states, which have been slammed for failing to make timely payments to coal companies.

Coal shortage

Coal inventories are at their lowest pre-summer levels in at least nine years. Peak-power demand in India surged to a record high on Thursday and is expected to rise by as much as 8 per cent next month, according to the power ministry.

A railway official said a total of 533 coal rakes had been pressed into service to move coal to the power plants. On Wednesday, 427 rakes were loaded with 1.62 million tonnes of coal for the power sector.

They said each rake carried around 3,500 tonnes of coal. The drill will continue for at least two more months in an effort to improve stocks at power plants and avoid any crisis in July-August when coal mining is badly affected by rain.

Coal India said the public-sector miner had loaded 271.2 rakes per day on an average during fiscal 2022 and this was 12.3 per cent higher than the average of 241.4 rakes loaded in FY21. If more rakes are made available at the loading points, this will give an impetus to the coal offtake for thermal power plants from Coal India mines.

Officials said a combination of rail-cum-road movement could lead to a faster coal stock-up at power plants.

Coal India has already stepped up production to 26.4 MT during the first half of April, up 27 per cent on a year-on-year basis. Coal India has set a production and offtake target of 700 MT for the current fiscal.

India last faced a major power crisis in October 2021 but the situation this month is far more widespread, with more than half the country facing more power cuts than in October.