No Crisis Yet, Says Minister On Reports Of 4 Days Of Coal Reserves Left

India is facing possible energy supply problems in the coming months due to coal shortages and a post-pandemic surge in demand, the government had said.

Power Minister RK Singh on Tuesday told NDTV that the coal shortage in the country has not led to a power crisis yet and there is no need for rationing at present, insisting that the production will be able to meet the demand over the next few days.

Acknowledging that there have been some issues in transportation which a government committee is looking into, the minister said India's demand for power has seen a substantial jump which is a good thing but this has created a huge demand for coal.

"It is not a power crisis. We are meeting the entire demand of the country and the demand is increasing. Yesterday, the demand was about 15,000 megawatts more than the corresponding day in the previous year... that's good news," Mr Singh said.

"The coal supply [is] something which we have to monitor. It's an ongoing process because coal is patched from the mines every day. We are monitoring that on a day-to-day basis. We have a group under Secretary Power which has members from the Ministry of Coal as well as the railways et cetera. So, we are meeting whatever demand is there," he said.