prevent a crisis, the rainy season is expected to worsen their struggle. During a recent meeting chaired by cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, Indian Railways acknowledged that the agency has exhausted its rake availability capacity, the Economic Times reported. “Indian Railways has admitted that it is exhausted and has no more spare capacity,” the newspaper cited a senior government official saying. “It has said it can improve its capacity each month with the addition of new rakes supplied by BHEL. Overall situation remains critical.”
Meanwhile, the executive director of the Railway Ministry G K Bansal said that between September 2021 and February 2022, the Ministry had improved it wagon turn round (WTR) time by 16 per cent and is looking to improve it even further. India’s central power generators, NTPC and Damodar Valley Corp, together with states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are looking to address the challenges by importing coal. Minister of Power R K Singh has also urged private power plants to begin importing 4 per cent of their coal requirements.
“The coal companies have to focus on reducing the loading time at colliery sidings which is very high at some sidings,” another government official told ET. “Reducing the detention of all rakes at coal sidings to 3 hours or less, will generate additional empties to the tune of 3 to 4 rakes per day which can be gainfully utilised for more loading of coal.”
