A string of substantive measures the Indian Railways have taken made it possible for the primary supplier of coal to power plants in the country to augment record coal supply to powerhouses in the year 2021-22.

Coal transportation reached 111 million tonnes (MT) in the current month of April. During the year 2021-22, the Railways have loaded a record 653 million tonnes of coal, as compared to 542 million tonnes in the previous year, registering a growth of 20.4 percent.

According to the Railways, this rare feat was possible because of the various measures the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) has undertaken, including prioritization of movement of coal trains and intensive monitoring of each train during the entire cycle of transportation right from loading to movement, and finally unloading.

Further, during the period from September 2021 to March 2022, the loading of coal to the power sector was augmented by 32 percent in just two quarters.

In April 2022, the Indian Railways took many worthwhile steps to prioritize the loading of coal to the power sector which resulted in an increase in the coal supply by more than 10 percent within one week’s time.

Through the prioritization and monitoring, the transit time of trains laden with coal has been significantly reduced, by 12-36 percent for critical power plants.

The Railways have prioritized the movement of coal transport to long-distance powerhouses as well, which is reflected in the fact that the average lead of coal trains has increased by 7 percent in the last five days, as compared to the average leads during 1-10 April.

Despite this increase in the average lead of coal trains, the time taken between two successive loadings of the same rake for these stocks has been reduced by 10 percent.

With these operational innovations, the Indian Railways could be able not only to augment the supply of coal to powerhouses but also load more coal rakes on a sustained basis.

Buoyed by this achievement, the Railways are fully geared to mobilize all its resources to ensure that a sustained high level of coal supply is maintained to powerhouses with a commitment to lifting all domestic coal brought to the sidings/good sheds by the coal companies and imported coal brought to the ports by the power generating companies.