Coal India asks subsidiaries to prepare rake requirement list

Faced with the problem of coal off take especially during the last quarter of any fiscal (January-March) due to inadequate availability of rakes from the Indian Railways, Coal India Limited (CIL) has directed its eight subsidiaries to prepare a list of their respective rake requirement for different periods of the year.

Once the subsidiaries come up with their rake requirement for different periods of a fiscal, CIL would take up the issue in a review meeting with the Indian Railways which is expected to be held by the end of this month.

“CIL is aiming to compile figures of the rake requirement of its subsidiaries in different periods of a fiscal. The subsidiaries of CIL are expected to come out with their respective rake requirement within a few days”, a top CIL official told Business Standard.

CIL expects to negotiate with the Indian Railways on the availability of rakes in a meeting which is likely to be held by the end of this month, he added.

The objective of the meeting would be to secure rake supplies for the subsidiaries of CIL to help improve coal off take and clear the pithead inventory of coal particularly during the last quarter of any fiscal when the production of the coal PSU (public sector undertaking) reaches its peak.

CIL has been constantly taking up the issue of inadequate rakes with the Indian Railways but the Railways was not able to provide additional rakes as the rakes ere reserved for movement of food grains and fertilisers.

It may be noted that owing to inadequate rakes, CIL’s stockpile at the pitheads of all its subsidiaries has now gone up to about 43 million tonnes. In the last quarter of any fiscal (January-March) when CIL’s coal production reaches its peak, it needs 192 rakes per day for securing coal off take.

CIL’s coal production which is hit during the monsoon season picks up in the second half of any fiscal and reaches its peak during the last quarter (January-March). On an average, CIL’s coal production during January-March stands at around 1.6 million tonnes per day out of which the coal PSU (public sector undertaking) is able to secure offtake of about 1.3 million tonnes.

The problem of coal offtake is more pronounced in the Ib valley coalfields under the command area of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), one of the subsidiaries of CIL where coal off take fails to keep pace with the production during the peak season.

As CIL was scaling up its coal output target every fiscal, it needed more rakes to ensure that the coal off take kept pace with its rising production. The coal PSU targeted to produce 405 million tonnes of coal by the end of 2008-09 and its production was projected at about 520 million tonnes by the end of 2011-12.