NEW DELHI: Amid a coal crisis in many states, the Indian Railways said it is fully geared up to maintain the transportation chain on mission mode and ensure supply to power stations.
On Saturday, the railways said operations of coal-transporting freight trains have been prioritised and intensively monitored right from the time of coal loading to unloading at the destination sites.
Rajiv Jain-ADG (PR) of Indian Railways said, “Through this prioritization and monitoring the transit times of coal trains to long distance power plants has been reduced significantly by 12-36% for critical power plants.”
Jain, sharing details of the action plan to prevent the looming shortage of coal, said the railways prioritised the movement of coal trains to long distance power houses as well, which is reflected by the increase in average lead of coal trains by 7% in the last five days compared to the average leads of April 1 and 10.
“Despite this increase in the average lead of coal trains, the time taken between two successive loading of the same rake for these stocks has reduced by 10%,” Jain said, adding that the railways took substantive measures in 2021-22 and the current month of April to augment the coal supply to the power sector.
Citing data, he said that the railways during 2021-22 augmented the transportation of coal by a record 111 million tonnes and set a loading a record of 653 million tonnes compared to 542 million tonnes in the previous year registering a growth of 20.4%.
He said, “In April 2022, the railways has taken many steps to prioritise the loading of coal to the power sector which has led to increase in supply of coal of more than 10% within one week.”
“The railways is committed to transport all domestic coal that is brought to the sidings and good sheds by coal companies and imported coal brought to the ports by power generating companies,” Jain added.