The Hindu Business Line : Daily wagon loading on East Coast Rly drops to 9,600

Kolkata, July 25 The monsoon this year, like every year, has started taking its toll on freight loading of the East Coast Railway (ECoR), the average daily loading of wagons having dropped to around 9,600 from the targeted 10,500.

“We’re up by about 10 per cent over the last year’s daily average loading of 8,800 and yet we’re worried,” observe ECoR sources pointing out that the pressure on loading will rise from October onwards. “From October, the daily average loading has to be more than 11,000 if we are to achieve the targeted freight traffic of 96 million tonnes in 2007-08”.

Coal is ECoR’s major item of traffic and the coal loading at Talcher mines is about 20/21 rakes a day on an average against the targeted 25/26 rakes. The rains have flooded mines; the roads having been badly hit, the road-bridging ,i.e. road transportation of coal from the mines to the nearest railheads, too has been affected. As a result, the loading of a rake is taking much more time than normal. The rakes get detained and the average turnaround time increases.

The loading of imported coal at two ports, Visakhapatnam and Paradip, too has been hit. The rakes which carry iron ore for exports through the ports are used for backloading of imported coal. In the rains, iron ore gets sticky with the result its loading and unloading becomes difficult and therefore time-taking. In turn, the rake loading of imported coal too gets affected.

The loading of iron rake on the Daitari-Banspani route has dropped to one rake a day as compared to four in normal situation. On an average 13 to 14 rakes of iron ore for exports are transported every day to these two ports — about six to seven rakes to Visakhapatnam and about seven rakes to Paradip. Fortunately, the iron ore movement on the 450-km long Kottavalasa-Kirandul line fared better. Against the daily average of 14/15 rakes in normal situation, about 11 rakes are currently being loaded and transported on the route. Last year, the daily average loading dropped to nine wagons.

As a cumulative effect of all this, ECoR’s wagon-holding too is up by 2,000 to around 38,000, the sources add.