The Hindu Business Line : Carrying coal to Punjab

For the first time, the Howrah Division of the Eastern Railway (ER), known for handling record of number of passenger trains every day, has started handling coal and that too for despatches to far off Punjab.

This has been possible because a private coal company has got the mining lease in the Pakur area, under the jurisdiction of Howrah Division, and started mining and dispatching coal to Bhatinda and Ropar plants of the Punjab State Electricity Board. Right now the loading has been of the order of 0.7 rake a day totalling one million tonnes annually.

However, the coal company has indicated that the throughput will rise to 2.5 mt by 2008 and to 10 mt by 2011. With a freight throughput of a little more than 5 mt, the Howrah Division accounts for a little more than 10 per cent of ER's total freight traffic of about 47 mt annually and the bulk of the Division's freight traffic comprises stone covering chips, boulders and ballast, and throughput is estimated at an estimated 4 mt.

The emergence of coal as a major item of freight traffic should boost the Division's and thus ER's earnings substantially.

Our Bureau