Rlys says CIL charges of wagon shortage baseless

The Railways today said more wagons than needed were available for CIL during the last quarter of the past fiscal, disputing the coal major's charge that it could not meet production target due to shortage of rakes.

Stating that it was not a question of shortage but under-utilisation on the part of Coal India, the Railways in a release said here today that CIL's net wagon requirement in the fourth quarter accumulated to over 200 rakes/day against its original requirement of 180. The statement added that the Railways achieved a loading of about 179 rakes a day in March.

Reeling out daily freight loading figures for the first three quarters, the Railways said CIL could load only 153.6 rakes a in the first quarter, 145 in the second quarter, and 162 in the third quarter, even though more rakes were available for loading during these periods.

The CIL faced major problems in transporting coal from the mines to the railway sidings during these periods.

The Railways said although CIL has projected a sharp increase in stocks, this has not materialised in increased loading in the first week of April. "About 30 rakes/day were idling due to CIL’s inability to load up to full potential in the first week of this month. Against a projected requirement of 190 rakes/ day the loading was only 160-162 rakes/day despite adequate availability of rakes," the release said.

The railway ministry has already taken up the issue with the coal ministry, it said, adding transportation capacities lost in the first six months could not be made up in the last six months period.

The Railways also had to evacuate about 21-23 million tonne of imported coal for thermal power stations which was an increase of around 7 million tonne over the past year in view of CIL not being able to provide adequate coal to customers.

CIL Chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya on Tuesday said shortage of rakes posed a major problem for its subsidiaries like Mahanadi Coalfields, Central Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal, and this was one of the main reasons for CIL missing the production target in 2009-10, he had said.

The company had achieved production of 431.27 million tonne during the year against the target of 435 million tonne.