According to Delhi's Power Minister Satyendra Jain, more than half of India's 135 coal-fired power plants, which supply around 70% of the country's electricity, have seen their stocks depleted to such low levels that they only have enough to guarantee power for three days before the capital city is hit with blackouts. Typically, they're supposed to keep a buffer supply of at least one month. But these aren't normal times.

"If coal supply doesn't improve, there will be a blackout in Delhi in two days," the national capital's Power Minister Satyendra Jain said today. "The coal-fired power plants that supply electricity to Delhi have to keep a minimum coal stock of one month, but now it has come down to one day," Mr Jain said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is pleading with the government to send emergency supplies of coal by rail: "our request to the center is that railway wagons should be arranged and coal should be transported to the plants soonest. All the plants are already running in only 55 per cent capacity," according to NDTV.