Furor over whether Coal India Ltd. can meet domestic demand for coal misses a bigger problem: While existing power plants face insufficient fuel supply, the supply and offtake uncertainty has caused a whole cohort of new power plant projects to be scrapped. "The obvious inefficiencies at Coal India that lead to insufficient coal production have turned up the volume of observers calling for the company’s domestic monopoly to be removed," writes Russell Green. The best solution would be to dramatically ramp up domestic coal production by pushing for faster regulatory clearances for key coal projects.
