Indian Railways working to stock up on coal to ensure no monsoon shortages

Representative image.

Indian Railways is working with Coal India and power producers to ensure that there are no shortages of coal during the monsoon even if heavy rains disrupt coal production and transportation.

“Indian Railways is targeting to dispatch around 50 million tonnes (MT) of coal to powerhouses in both July and August by using around 450 rakes per day to ensure that there is adequate coal available,” a senior official in the Ministry of Railways said.

The national transporter is on track to meeting its 50 MT target for July, but there may be some disruption in August as coal production and transportation is expected to slow down because of heavy rains, the official said.

In May and June, Indian Railways transported 52.4 MT and 51.2 MT of coal to power generating companies, double the quantity of coal transported in the same period in 2021, according to Ministry of Railways data.

Emergency budget 

The transporter has also set aside an emergency budget to operate covered rakes in case of heavy rain and disruptions in coal supply, a second railway official said.

Over the last two months, Indian Railways has prioritized the transportation of coal to power plants in order to curb power outages resulting from shortages of coal to fuel thermal power generators

“Coal-carrying rakes have been given preference over passenger trains along any route for the last two months, and this will continue to be the case in the coming few months,” the second official said.

He added that Indian Railways has also extended the time period prescribed for checking the mechanical condition of rakes. It has increased the operating duration of rakes by 2,500 km, which means that rakes used to transport coal will be sent to garages for repairs only after running 10,000 km, instead of the 7,500 km before.

Hybrid coal transport system 

Indian Railways is also working with power generating companies to set up dedicated lines and is helping them acquire rakes in order to ensure that there is no supply shortage.

And it is working with thermal power plants and road transportation companies to come up with a hybrid system of transporting coal.

“In states like Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and West Bengal we are in discussion with power producers and road companies to transport coal in the case of emergency situations,”  the first official said.

He added that as part of the hybrid model under discussion, Indian Railways will work with road freight operators to supply coal to power houses in case trains cannot be used to transport coal directly.

Mismatch in planning 

As part of a long-term solution to ensure adequate supply of coal across the country, Indian Railways has asked the central government to let the Railway Ministry have the final say on transportation of coal, the first official said.

“There is a big mismatch in terms of planning of loading stations and destination power plants. Planning is done by other ministries and not the Rail Ministry due to which proper allocation of resources is not done,” he said.

He added that if Indian Railways was allowed to prepare the plan for transportation of coal in India, it would ensure timely allocation of rakes throughout the year.

Power Minister RK Singh said last month that the government was working to increase the stock of coal at power plants to 40 MT, from around 22.9 MT at the time.

On July 1, Coal India said the inventory at power plants stood at 26.2 MT, and asked power generating companies to increase their stocks immediately.

As of July 13, as many as 65 of 150 power plants running on domestic coal had critically low coal stocks, and many of them cited the lack of enough railway rakes as the key reason. Another nine imported coal-based power plants also had critically low levels of coal.