The message was reportedly made in a letter to Singh which detailed that state miner Coal India had assured a total capacity of 103,000MW, while current fuel supply agreements accounted for only 60,000MW.

The India Express relayed the minister’s concern that fuel-starved power units linked to the miner were on track to fall short 60 million tonnes of coal in 2012-13.

The report also projected that only 612Mt of coal was expected to be available when plant demand reached 788Mt in 2016.

The news follows on a recent directive from the government that would require Coal India to meet only 65% of its supply agreements despite signing a deal to meet 80% of the demand.

According to The Hindu, Coal India will only pay a penalty if the supply drops below the 65% mark, but supply levels in three to four years time are expected to reach 72% and 80%, respectively.

India’s critical coal-fired power situation manifested itself most notably last August with a blackout that left 600 million people without power.

Earlier this month, Indian utility Tata Power acknowledged the severity of the shortfall, saying it was scanning US, Colombian and African coal assets to feed its planned four-fold spike in generational capacity by 2020.