India to boost coal imports to cope with harsh weather

India's power utilities will likely boost coal imports this year to cope with surges in demand, made worse over the past year by extreme temperatures, and with freight bottlenecks that are disrupting domestic coal supplies, analysts and officials said.

A steady rise in industrial electricity use in recent years has left utilities in India, one of the world's fastest growing major economies and the second-largest coal consumer and importer, with limited leeway to confront extraordinary demand or hiccups in supply.