How severe is the Indian power sector’s coal crisis?

India’s power demand has been increasing exponentially over the last few months, attributable to a significant uptick in economic activity coupled with an above normal rise in temperature. This has put considerable pressure on coal burn in the absence of any substantial contributions from alternate generation sources. However, domestic coal supply fails to keep pace with the ever-growing appetite for coal. As a result, well over 50% of India’s coal-based capacity is stranded with critical coal inventories. In this article: • How the coal crisis escalated to such an extreme stage? • What is being done to ease the supply constraints? • What role is the seaborne coal market playing in alleviating the situation?