Indian Railways is continuously working towards intensifying transportation of coal to power plants across the country. For this, the national transporter is coordinating closely with the Ministry of Coal for enhancing evacuation and distribution of coal capabilities.
New railway lines for coal distribution:-
The Ministry of Railways is constructing 13 railway lines for transport of coal from one place to another. Presently, these are at various stages of construction.
First Mile Connectivity projects
A total of 67 First Mile Connectivity (FMC) Projects with 885 Metric Tonnes capacity are being taken in three phases to achieve capacity of ~1BT mechanized handling of coal.
Coal Minister on Railway projects for coal transportation:-
In a written reply to Lok Sabha, Union Minister of Coal and Mines Prahlad Joshi said, “In line with the goal of PM Gati Shakti, the Ministry of Coal has undertaken railway projects costing Rs. 26000 Cr to develop multimodal connectivity.”
Coal transportation – Key features of Railways’ freight performance
The transportation of coal has been one of the key features of the Railways’ freight performance in FY 2022-23. The loading of Coal (both domestic and imported) to Power Houses has increased by 84 MT in FY 2022-23 with 569 MT Coal being moved to Power houses as against 485 MT last year, i.e. a growth of 17.3 percent.
Measures undertaken by Railways for coal transportation:-
The Railways has taken many steps to prioritize the loading of coal to the power sector such as – (a) The movement of Coal trains has been prioritized and (b) Through this prioritization and monitoring the Transit time of coal trains to long distance Power has been reduced significantly.
The Central Railway (CR) zone has registered Coal loading of 903 rakes in February-2023 as against 885 rakes in February-2022 while, the Eastern Railway (ER) zone has shown a sharp increase by 11.14 percent as 4.19 million tonnes coal loaded in June, 2023 against 3.77 million tonnes of coal loading during the same period last year.