Andhra Pradesh cancels Adani bids to supply imported coal
Live MintIndia's southern Andhra Pradesh has cancelled bids made for two separate tenders by India's Adani Enterprises to supply imported coal as the prices quoted were too high, two state government officials told Reuters. Adani, India's largest coal trader, offered to supply last month 500,000 tonnes of South African coal at 40,000 rupees per tonne and another 750,000 tonnes at 17,480 rupees in January, the officials said. India has cut supplies to the non-power sector as it faced two of its worst power shortages in recent years in October and March, despite record production by state-run near-monopoly Coal India Ltd. One of the officials, B Sreedhar, managing director at Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corp Ltd, said the current power shortage was not as bad as the one in October, but said the state was living a "hand-to-mouth existence". Andhra Pradesh, which faced an electricity deficit of 7% during the last three days of March, floated a tender this week "for urgent procurement" of 100,000 tonnes of imported coal, the officials said.