Saturday, May 21,
Coal India Ltd’s recently made a statement that there is simply not enough rail capacity in the country to transport coal from pit heads.*
However, Indian Railways has claimed that the coal lying at pithead cannot be transported by rail. The problem is in last mile connectivity, which is handled by CIL.
“Coal has to be made ‘rail able’ (made available at railheads) before the Railways can move it. The last mile distance between Coal India’s pithead and rail head could range from 10-40 km. To cover this distance, Coal India appoints road transport firms,” explained a Ministry official.
“Blaming the Railways for transport capacity crunch is not fair when about 47 per cent coal mined by CIL is evacuated using rail mode,” the Ministry official added.
However, Railways plant to take various short term measures to transport the coal lying idle at the pit head. These include moving longer trains of empty wagons back to the railheads of coal mines so that more coal can be loaded.
Coal India also proposes to build three new rail links having a total length of 350 km to connect its coal fields in the interiors. The new rail links would connect coal fields in the Ib Valley, North Karanpura and Mand-Raigarh coal fields. These coal mines are in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh.
Source: The Business Line
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