The Hindu Business Line : A traffic overload for East Coast Rly

Recently in Bhubaneswar The Railway Board has fixed the traffic target for East Coast Railway (ECoR, headquartered at Bhubaneswar, with network across entire Orissa and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) for 2007-08 at 96 million tonnes (mt), up from 83.92 mt handled in 2006-07.

It is a revised target. The original target was 93 mt. However, the Board revised it upward. Which means the ECoR has to transport an additional 12 mt the current fiscal, or roughly one mt extra every month. “It is a steep and challenging target,” say ECoR sources.

In the first three months, the total additional throughput was 1.7 mt; it should have been three mt. There was thus a shortfall of about 1.3 mt. “We took a big hit in May,” said the sources.

The transportation of iron ore along the 450-km Kirandul-Kottavalasa (K-K) line remained suspended for 10 days due to a power outage. Maoists had blown up transmission towers in Chhattisgarh, causing suspension of power supply over wide areas, including the K-K line.

Some 15 rakes of ore are loaded and transported on the route every day, mostly for export through Visakhapatnam port and partly for consumption of the Visakhapatnam steel plant of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL). The monsoon months are particularly bad. Freight movement on the K-K Line suffered last year too because of landslips. There was virtually no movement on the route for about a month.

Also, for various reasons, the average daily loading of thermal coal at Talcher mines under Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd dropped sharply from the normal daily loading of 26/27 rakes. The situation does not appear normal yet.

Natural disasters

The success of ECoR’s functioning also presupposes efficient functioning of infrastructure at various levels over which the zonal railway has little control. One such area is ports. ECoR serves two major ports — Paradip and Visakhapatnam. “As long as these ports perform well, we will have no problems,” the sources said, pointing out that the reality was often different. Each port has its own problems. Then there are natural disasters. The east coast ports are particularly vulnerable to cyclones and storms. Recently inclement weather affected operations at both Visakhapatnam and Paradip; even Haldia was not spared. “We held high-level meetings at both ports to work out something beneficial for the ports as well as the railways,” the sources said.

Capacity expansion

The expansion of capacity is another area that deserves attention for supporting the projected increase in throughput. “The capacity expansion could be achieved in two ways”, said the sources. “First, by launching new projects and second by making the existing facilities more productive”.

The commissioning of the Daitari-Banspani line in the iron-rich belt of Orissa recently has already created an additional capacity of about two mt. Two new loop lines, complete with a flyover, are being constructed at Jakhapura to facilitate movement of iron ore from Sukinda area to Paradip.

The sanctioned projects include construction of new broad gauge lines including Lanjigarh-Junagarh (54 km), Khurda-Bolangir (290 km), Haridaspur-Paradip (82 km; a Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd project), Sukinda Road-Angul (98.76 km) and Talcher-Bimalagarh (154 km); doubling of 10-km Cuttack-Barang and 31.5-km Rajatgarh-Barang lines (both RVNL projects), Titlagarh-Lanjigarh line (47 km), Khurda Road-Puri (15.3 km), Sambalpur-Rengali (22.7 km) and the second bridge over the Mahanadi (2.6 km; another RVNL project).

The sanctioned projects for construction of a third line include those between Barang and Khurda Road and between Vizianagaram and Kottavalasa and the construction of a fourth line between Kottavalasa and Simhachalam. The projects under survey include the construction of a third line between Bhadrak and Nirgundi and double line between Angul and Sambalpur.

Doubling K-K line

The K-K line being critically important for ECoR’s freight movement, mostly iron ore movement, there is a proposal for doubling the line and a survey in this regard is in progress.

However, it is also felt that the doubling of the entire 450-km stretch may not be possible because of the extremely difficult terrain.

But then constructing the new line is a long-term measure. In the short-term, ECoR is planning some modifications, known as uniflow, at Bacheli, the main iron ore loading point for National Mineral Development Corporation. A bulb-like new construction is to facilitate loading of more rakes at Bacheli, as many as 14 rakes as compared to eight per day on an average.

The existing facilities are being made productive through various other ways also. As many as 10 terminals at various places are being updated to handle the increased volume of traffic.

Also, internal movement is being streamlined through improvement of internal loops and interlocking systems and better loco and crew availability.

All these steps are targeted at reducing detention and to improve turnaround time. ECoR sources, however, conceded that there was a shortage of drivers.

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