The Hindu Business Line : East Coast Rly hopes to handle 79-mt freight traffic

, EAST Coast Railway (ECR), having its headquarters in Bhubaneswar and network spread over large parts of Orissa and some parts of Andhra Pradesh, hopes to handle a freight traffic of 78-79 million tonnes (mt) in the current fiscal compared to 70.4 mt in 2004-05. Till December, the throughput was 56.5 mt.

"We hope to handle 7.5 mt of freight every month for the next three months," a spokesman for ECR told Business Line recently in Bhubaneswar.

It might be noted that iron ore (an estimated 29 mt), indigenous coal (25 mt) and imported coal (16 mt) are three major items of the Railways' total traffic throughput.

Wagon holdings: But then, as he pointed out, much would depend on the availability of rakes. There was a general shortage of Box-N wagons in the country and the wagon holding of three of the country's major freight loading zonal railways, including ECR, had been less than their authorised holdings.

Thus, East Coast Railway was holding 98 rakes compared to 115 rakes of authorised holding. The corresponding figures for South Eastern Railway were 151 and 155, respectively and for South East Central Railway 122 and 155, respectively.

Several other zonal railways such as Eastern Railway, East Central Railway, Northern Railway, North Central Railway, South Central Railway and West Central Railway, however, presented just the opposite picture. Their wagon holdings were more than their authorised holdings.

To overcome the present crisis, ECR proposes to concentrate more on movement within the zone. "About 70 per cent of our movement is within the zone and we would like to step it up," he said, pointing out that the major customers such as National Aluminium Company Ltd, Vizag Steel Plant, Indian Charge Chrome Ltd and several new steel and aluminium plants in the State, all located within the zone, could be served better in this way. "We'll get back the rakes quickly and there will be faster turnaround," he said.

The first phase commissioning of the wagon maintenance depot near Bhubaneswar towards the month-end, it was pointed out, should help improve the availability of wagons within the zone. The investment in the depot is estimated at Rs 12 crore. East Coast Railway also commissioned in November an electric loco shed at Angul. The first phase work covering monthly and quarterly schedules would be undertaken in the shed.

Other problems: Non-availability of rakes is not the only problem facing ECR. The other problems include shortage of running staff and not-so-encouraging response of some of the major customers to develop their own railway sidings.

There were vacancies for 560 running staff, the majority of which had been filled up and the balance 200 or so would be filled soon.

The spokesman regretted that the railway sidings were not ready for most of the new steel plants coming up in the iron ore belt of the State; worse, some of the plant authorities were not even keen to develop their own rail infrastructure.

In some cases, land acquisition had been a problem. "The absence of sidings with major customers might force ECR to clamp restriction on wagon movement from time to time", the spokesman added.