Coal India draws logistics strategy to push coal evacuation

PSU behemoth Coal India, which is facing constraints in evacuation infrastructure, is planning to realign its logistics management of railway rakes to increase evacuation by additional 5-8 per cent.

"We are trying to push for higher evacuation capability. We are trying leverage the existing rail rakes available and utilise them to the optimum to move more coal," Coal India chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya told PTI.

He had a meeting recently with state-owned power generation companies of South India along with Railways and explored all possibilities to provide them more coal.

Bhattacharya said Coal India is trying to explore possibilities to transport coal of other subsidiaries to southern region through ports of eastern region and leveraging multi-modal transport.

According to estimates Coal India will be able to increase evacuation by 5-8 per cent in the immediate term. Coal India fell short by 6 per cent in meeting offtake target of 520 million tonnes (MT) in FY15.

This may open an opportunity for Eastern Coalfields, Central Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal Ltd to move their coal to Haldia and Dhamra ports utilising empty returning railway rakes and from there to southern destinations like Krishnapatnam and Ennore for southern generation stations by sea route.