The Hindu Business Line : Rlys signs traffic guarantee pact with prospective users

Rake provision
East Coast Railway, on behalf of the Indian Railways, has given the guarantees to the prospective users of the line to provide the required number of rakes and other facilities.

Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata, April 8 The Indian Railways has signed the traffic guarantee agreement with the prospective users of the proposed 82-km long Haridaspur-Paradip railway line in Orissa.

According to the agreement, a total of about 13 million tonnes of iron ore is to be transported annually from the Daitari mines to Paradip port for exports via the proposed line and the traffic commitment that the various companies have given to the Railways will be as follows: Rungta Mines and Essel Mining – three mt each; Posco – 4.2 mt in the first year and from the second year 5.6 mt; Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) and Steel Authority of India (SAIL) – 0.5 mt each; and Bellary-based MSTL – 1.5 mt.

These companies are also shareholders in the special purpose vehicle (SPV), Haridaspur-Paradip Rail Company Ltd, floated by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd in partnerships with the Orissa Government, Paradip Port Trust and SAIL.

East Coast Railway (ECoR), on behalf of the Indian Railways, has given the guarantees to the prospective users of the line to provide the required number of rakes and other facilities. An estimated 11 rakes will be needed every day to transport the targeted volume of traffic. The proposed line will be built to support 25-tonne axle load so that high capacity rakes can be operated on the route.

The 165-km long Daitari-Banspani-Jakhapura line is already a 25-tonne axle load line. Jakhapura is located on the mainline (i.e. Howrah-Chennai route), so is Haridaspur and the distance between the two is about 23 km. There is therefore a proposal to construct a new 25-tonne axle load line covering the same distance so that the entire 270-km long stretch from Daitari to Paradip (i.e. Daitari-Banspani-Jakhapura-Haridaspur-Paradip) becomes the high capacity line.

Once the construction of the lines is over, a new agreement, to be known as O&M (operations and maintenance) agreement, will be signed between the SPV and the ECoR, according to Railway sources.

The work on the construction of bridges over two rivers, the Mahanadi and the Luna, is in progress as part of the proposed Haridaspur-Paradip rail line project. The target date for commissioning the line is March 2010, add the sources.