An acute shortage of coal is keeping power plants on tenterhooks as bottlenecks in mining, delayed rail movement and costly imports are posing a major challenge to step up output and avoid the kind of grid collapse that had left 600 million people in the country without electricity last month.

According to the latest figures of the Central Electricity Authority of India, as many as 31 power plants have "critical" level of coal stock ranging from four to seven days as against the normal level, ...

The two thermal power plants will have the capacity to generate 5,280 MW daily, to reduce power cuts across the state.

The coal-fired plants will be set up at Dhopawe, in coastal Ratnagir...