The Hindu Business Line : Railways asked to rush coal to 2 NTPC plants

Actual facts
With the virtual collapse of captive mines, little coal is being transported by merry-go-round systems.
Railways has decided to evacuate coal from Haldia and Paradip ports.
It is also planning to place rakes for loading coal at ECL and IB Valley mines.

Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata, Oct. 4 The Railways has been asked to rush power-grade coal from whatever sources, no matter whether it is Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) or Central Coalfields Ltd or North-Eastern Coalfields Ltd or any other coal company or imported stocks lying at Haldia and Paradip ports, to National Thermal Power Corporation’s mega thermal power plants located at Farakka (West Bengal) and Kahalgaon (Bihar).

The reason: the production at Rajmahal mines, the captive mines of these two thermal power plants, has virtually collapsed with the result little coal is being transported by the merry-go-round systems, according to informed sources. Worse, the pithead stocks too have been found to be substantially lower than what was earlier claimed, the sources added.

Issue at Ministry-level

With only two to three days to go before the existing stocks at the plants get exhausted, the Ministries of Power, Coal and Railways have gone into overdrive as to how to cope with the situation. The matter has come up for review even at the PMO level, it is learnt, and a high-level committee comprising senior officials of the ministries concerned have been constituted to monitor the situation closely.

The Railways, it is learnt, is trying its best to cope with the situation. For example, it has decided to place as many rakes as possible at Haldia and Paradip to evacuate immediately whatever imported coal available as ground stocks at these ports.

Also, it is planning to place three rakes a day for loading coal at some ECL mines and three rakes a day also at IB Valley mines under Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd and some rakes at the mines of other coal companies.

But then, as the sources point out, the Railways too has its own constraints like limited line capacity and the problems related to change of traction. “One should not expect miracles from the Railways,” the sources observe.

Import proposal

Earlier, NTPC had planned to import coal at the rateof 70,000 tonnes a month for Kahalgaon and 1,00,000 tonnes a month for Farakka. However, the planned imports did not materialise for whatever reasons. Now, the revised plan is to import 1,15,000 tonnes a month each for the two plants.

In addition, the Railways has been asked to source from the domestic mines 3,30,000 tonnes month for Kahalgaon and 3,35,000 tonnes a month for Farakka as against the earlier plan to transport per month 1,90,000 tonnes for Kahalgaon and 2,60,000 tonnes for Farakka.

The Standing Linkage Committee, comprising representatives from the ministries of coal, electricity and railways, too is believed to have cut down substantially on the merry-go-round linkages for Farakka and Kahalgaon with the result the overall linkages too have dropped.

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