Floods lead to transportation issues; coal loading declines, misses target

The new Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, who also retains charge of the Coal Ministry, has assumed charge at a time when coal loading in trains is declining.

Coal loading, which accounts for almost half of the Indian Railways’ freight traffic, declined around 2% in April-July due to floods, poor transportation to rail sidings and closure of the Dhanbad- Chandrapura railway line.

Freight accounts for almost 65% of the Railways’ revenues and helps it cross-subsidise passenger earnings.

Coal loading went down to 173.81 million tonnes in April-July from 176.81 million tonnes in the same period the previous year and against the target of 174.71 million tonnes. The decline in coal loading came at a time when the overall goods traffic rose 4.2% to 375.57 million tonnes in the first four months of this financial year.

“Due to floods, there were issues related to transportation of coal to rail sidings,” said a senior Railway Ministry official. He added that the Ministry had been holding regular meetings to discuss the issue with Coal India Limited.

‘Loading time increases’

The average time to load coal on trains has also gone up from the usual four hours. “Large rakes were detained for about five-six hours in some cases at sidings and this also affected the coal loading this year,” the official said.

Around 218 rakes per day were loaded in July as against a target of loading 244 rakes a day. “We have set a target of loading 239 rakes daily in the coming months,” the official said, adding that the Railways has additional rakes to load coal.

Experts said with Mr. Goyal coming in, the coordination between Coal and Railway Ministry will improve. “The same Minister for both Coal and Railway Ministry will bring a lot of synergy. Also, the blame game would also cease between both the departments and issues can be resolved quickly,” former Railway Board Chairman Vivek Sahai said.

However, Mr. Sahai said that another challenge for Mr. Goyal would be to increase the freight basket for the Indian Railways and move beyond coal.

The Railways had initiated a detailed study of as many as 46 commodities to find out the potential sectors which can help increase the freight growth. Some of the areas included refrigerated goods, building material, horticulture, courier express and parcel, marble, glass among others. However, the Railways has not been able to move away from its dependency on coal as yet.