NEW DELHI: With many states facing power shortages due to a coal crunch, Indian Railways has cancelled more than 650 passenger and express train trips to facilitate the movement of freight trains to power generation plants. Apart from cancellation of train trips, the routes of 42 passenger trains have also been diverted in many parts of the country to facilitate the transport of coal.
As the prime transporters of coal from coal mines to power generation plants, Indian Railways on Friday stated that the movement of coal trains has been prioritised and is being monitored from the loading sites to unloading points ensuring faster delivery.
According to data provided by Railway Ministry spokesperson Rajeev Jain, the railways has so far cancelled 657 trips of passenger and express trains under various zones in order to ensure faster movements of coal carrying trains to power generation plants. Among the passenger trains cancelled, eight pairs are express and superfast trains of daily, tri-weekly, bi-weekly and weekly frequency while the remaining are local passenger trains of daily frequency.
"The highest number of 114 trips of both up and down movements of 18237 Korba-Amritsar express superfast train has been cancelled with effect from March 28 to May 23 to ensure uninterrupted running schedule of coal-carrying trains,” the railways said, adding that the Secunderbad-Raipur superfast express train’s 13 trips have been cancelled.
Among the total trips cancelled, 148 trips are of MEMU passenger trains, while the rest are of mail and express trains.
Jain also stated that the railways has augmented the loading of coal to the power sector by 32% between September 2021 and March 2022.
"In April 2022, Indian Railways has taken many steps to prioritise the loading of coal to the power sector which has led to the increase in supply of coal of more than 10% within one week," Jain said through a statement.