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East Coast Railway (ECoR) is concerned at not-so-satisfactory loading of coal, particularly at Talcher mines, the main source of coal loading for the railway for domestic as well as coastal movement. Coal accounts for nearly 60 per cent of ECoR's total traffic.
“We're now loading on an average 20 rakes a day against our capacity to load as many as 27 rakes”, according to a spokesman for ECoR. “We're in touch with Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, the owner of Talcher mines, almost on daily basis and there have been meetings at the ministry level also but nothing much has happened”.
The situation, it is learnt, has been continuing for quite some time, presumably because the production is not picking up and the ground stock is negligible. First, there were strikes and law and order problem in the mines areas, followed by equipment failure. Subsequently, the Orissa Government clamped restriction on working in the sun between 11 am and 4 pm.
“The Orissa Government restriction was withdrawn on June 12 and the MCL authorities had indicated to come back to normal production sufficient to load at least 25 rakes a day but that did not happen”, the spokesman observed. “We understand that the matter is being taken up at a high level”.
Iron throughput drops
No wonder, in first two months of the current fiscal, ECoR's loading of coal at 10.7 million tonnes was less that the target of 11.3 mt. set for the period. However, it was up by more than a million tonnes over 9.6 mt in the same period of last year, thanks to the buoyancy in imported coal traffic at Paradip, Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports.
The drop in iron ore loading, mainly caused by the Orissa Government's restrictions to curb illegal mining, has been a major concern. There was an estimated 16 per cent drop in iron throughput from the target in April and May this year. During the period, the throughput was 2.82 mt against the targeted 3.39 mt and 3.36 mt in the same period of last year.
In April and May, ECoR's total handling was up 7.4 per cent at 18.23 mt over 16.98 mt in the same period of last year. However, the target for the period was 19.61 mt.
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