Mr Santosh Bagrodia union coal minister recently said that there is enough coal supply but everybody wants us to hold the inventory. He added that, while power units are crying hoarse over coal shortage, there is actually a problem of plenty.

Mr Bagrodia said that "Saddled with an inventory of 47 million tonnes, the public sector coal companies are planning special efforts to liquidate 25% of their holdings, besides sharply scaling up the monthly quantity sold under e auction from 3 million tonnes on an average to 15 million tonnes in May 2008."

Mr Bagrodia said that any claim of shortage was because of their failure to maintain the mandatory 21 day inventory. He added that about 27 power units were in critical condition as their stock position was less than 7 days.

He added that "The power ministry is claiming there is a 40 million tonne shortage, but we have 40 million tonnes stock, where is the shortage? There is enough supply, but everybody wants us to hold the inventory."

Referring to the power ministry claim on coal shortage delaying projects, Mr Bagrodia said that there was only 23,000 MW capacity addition last fiscal as against the targeted 100,000 MW.

Referring to imports, he said that 50% was coking coal and the rest was to meet emergency needs brought upon by the units themselves, besides the import of special quality coal.