India is seeing a surge in power demand, with industrial and economic activity picking up pace in the past few months. But thermal power plants are in a crisis as coal stocks are bottoming out. According to Central Electricity Authority (CEA) data, 77 coal-based thermal power plants (57% of total coal plants in India) with a total capacity of 98 GW had a ‘super critical’ coal-stock (stock for less than three days) on October 5, 2021.