Nearly 40% of India's coal-fired power plants are operating with critically low fuel stocks due to a surge in power demand amid hotter-than-usual weather linked to El Nino, government data showed on Monday.
The number of power plants with critically low coal stocks of less than 25% of the required inventory or only able to generate power for less than three days rose sharply to 74 as of September 19 from about 60 plants last week, data from the Central Electricity Authority that is updated daily showed.
