Coal firms report delay in loading at railway sidings due to shortage

Acute coal shortage, though being denied by the Centre, is now reflecting in its transport and logistics.

All coal companies under national miner Coal India (CIL) are causing significant coal loading delays at the railway sidings, citing “shortage or poor availability of coal.”
 

So far in May, 1,205 rakes allotted to the seven companies of CIL have incurred delays. This is close to a third of CIL’s total loading.

Cumulatively, coal companies have caused 227 hours of delay per day through all its mines and sidings during this month. Out of these, Central Coalfields (CCL), Jharkhand, alone accounts for 39 per cent of loading delays.

In the coal-rich belt of South East Central Railway (SECR), data from the railways showed at least 15 instances of loading delays every day. Close to 27 per cent of the total rakes being sent to coal sidings for loading are incurring delays.

Coal companies pay a demurrage charge for delays per rake. On May 16, CIL had to bear a late penalty on 69 of the 287 rakes loaded at its sidings, said a senior official.

In a year, the demurrage charge for CIL has gone up by 30 per cent owing to significant delays this season, the person said.

Coal is carried from mines to sidings where it is then loaded on to the railway rakes. A shortage of coal at the mines or delays in transportation can cause total loading time to go up.

As a fresh rake can be loaded only when the previous one is freed, any hold up derails the whole supply chain till the end of the thermal power station. One rake typically carries 58 wagons, with an approximate carriage capacity of 3,800 tonnes of coal.

The reason for the delay cited by coal companies in the track report of the railways is “shortage or poor availability of coal at the mines,” according to the data accessed by Business Standard.

This includes some of the country’s largest coal clusters of Korba, Talcher and IB Valley. In Korba, time to load all the wagons took more than four hours per rake. This happened for several days during this month, against the maximum loading time of three hours.

In an official submission of reason for delay submitted to the railways last week, South Eastern Coalfields (SECL), which operates the Korba coal fields, said “two of its sidings in Korba had a shortage of coal.” The situation remains similar this week, with a shortage reported at three sidings on Monday.

An internal freight report has also cited that CCL admitted that its target of loading 47 rakes of coal during the day was missed as there was “no coal at its siding” in Phusro, Jharkhand. Similarly, Western Coalfields (WCL) missed its target of 25 rakes due to a lack of coal at its Ghugus siding in Maharashtra.

“We have also raised this issue at several inter-ministerial deliberations. Delays in loading and unloading impact our turnaround time and the final data reflects poorly on us,” a ministry of railways official said.

Coal ministry officials, however, are of the view that there is a mismatch in the demand-supply of rakes in the coal belt regions. “We have been asking the railways to allocate more rakes in CCL and WCL zones but there is a bottleneck in the railway network in these areas. The railways continues to allocate more rakes in the SECL and MCL areas where we have communicated that rakes can now be reduced,” said a senior official. The official added that the delay is not due to shortage but due to logistics discrepancy.

Government data indicates that coal production at SECL has declined over the last week while daily production is increasing at MCL and CCL.

Industry sources said the delays would exacerbate once the monsoon arrives and rake planning should now be optimised across all coal companies. This will ensure sufficient coal stock at the end of power plants.