The Hindu Business Line : East Coast Rly’s coal loading remains suspended for fifth day

Kolkata, Feb. 21 East Coast Railway’s (ECoR) loading of domestic coal has been badly hit due to the strike by a section of the transport contractor workers employed in the Talcher mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL). The road transportation of coal, from the pitheads to the railway sidings, remained suspended for the fifth day on Thursday, and whatever stocks were there at the sidings have depleted.

“We were loading about 28 to 30 rakes a day at seven sidings of MCL and one private siding of a coal washery and, with stocks at the sidings having depleted, the rake loading has virtually come to a halt,” a spokesman for ECoR told Business Line over phone from Bhubaneswar.

“MCL’s Talcher mines account for ECoR’s entire loading of domestic coal — close to 30 million tonnes (mt ) annually,” he said.

Customer base

From Talcher mines, ECoR transports coal to various destinations including to the Paradip port (eight to 10 rakes a day) for coastal shipments to Tamil Nadu ports to meet the requirements of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Kanhia and Simadri plants of National Thermal Power Corporation in Orissa (eight rakes), the Andhra Pradesh power utility APGENCO (six rakes), the National Aluminium Company’s plants at Angul and Damonjodi in Orissa (two rakes), Talcher thermal plant of the Orissa Electricity Board (two rakes) and several other not-so-big consumers. There being no loading and transportation of coal for the past few days, stocks of coal with these customers too have dropped sharply, causing concern.

Strike causes, fallouts

The strike has been attributed to different events leading to it. One version relates the strike to the death of a cleaner of a dumper. The striking workers are allegedly demanding adequate compensation for the family of the victim. However, a more plausible version is that the strike has been caused by the arrest of a local leader of an all India political party. With the election being due in a while, the political party would like to cash in on it, it is learnt.

ECoR, the spokesman made it clear, would find it hard to achieve the targeted freight loading of 94 mt set for the current fiscal.

As he pointed out, the coal loading at Talcher mines remained suspended for several days in May, June, July and December due to the industrial unrest at the mines; worse, the iron ore movement along the 450-km long Kirandul-Kottavalasa section, which too was disturbed on several occasions in past few months due to the Maoist problem, is not normal as yet.

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