KOLKATA: State-owned Coal India has been forced to temporarily stop production at several mines and suspend shifts in others, as there are no takers for their stock due to surplus positon at all thermal power plants in the country. The coal stocks now stand at 84 million tonnes, with 48 million tonnes at various Coal India mines and another 36 million tonnes at power plants. “We have been forced to temporarily stop production at several mines, mostly open cast. The worst hit are the mines under subsidiaries of South Eastern Coalfields and Eastern Coalfields although all the producing companies have been affected, some severely. “The power companies are not in a position to take any additional coal and we are being requested, both officially and unofficially, to cut supplies, which has prompted us to scale down production at several other mines apart from the ones where we have stopped production temporarily,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity. Coal India is being forced to cut or stop production because there’s a limit on the volume of coal that can be stocked at any single location. The stock is so huge at some mines dumpers that carry coal from pits to stockyards cannot move within the mine area. Large stocks of coal also run the risk of catching fire. The irony, however, is that India is faced with surplus coal situation despite some 57,000 mw of thermal units starving for coal since they do not have any supply contract with Coal India. The National Coal Distribution Policy (NCDP) stipulates that Coal India cannot supply to power plants without signing any fuel supply agreement. The only way out now for Coal India is to supply more than 65% of the annual contracted quantity to power plants which have fuel supply agreements.