East Coast Railway, headquartered here, hopes to handle 128-129 million tonnes (mt) of revenue-earning freight traffic in the next financial year, about 9-10 mt more than the 119 mt likely to be handled this year. In 2010-11, the volume handled was 109 mt. Thus, the volume of incremental traffic in the next fiscal will be more or less the same as that in the current fiscal, though on a higher base.

“We of course do not know how much we will eventually handle in next fiscal; after all, we cannot factor in exigencies,” a spokesman for East Coast told Business Line . “The target for 2011-12 was set at 120.5 mt but the actual throughput would fall short of the target due to reasons beyond our control.”

Interestingly, despite the shortfall in overall traffic volume, throughput of coal, accounting for 56 per cent of East Coast's traffic, will not drop this fiscal vis-a-vis last fiscal. The coal throughput this fiscal is estimated to be about 67 mt, up from last fiscal's 61 mt or so. But the bulk of the incremental coal traffic should be attributed to the rise in imported coal, estimated at 33 mt as compared to 27 mt or so in 2010-11.

The throughput of domestic coal traffic is likely to remain unchanged at last year's level of 33-34 mt or so, despite significant jump in domestic loading in the second half, particularly at Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd's Talcher mines that account for 60 per cent of East Coast's domestic coal loading. Talcher loading in the first half was low, around 20 rakes a day on an average against 28 so far in the second half. “If the shortfall in domestic coal loading in the first half was around 2 mt or so, perhaps we could have made it up in the second half but any shortfall which is more than that is difficult to cover,” observed the spokesman. “After all there is a limit to step-up loading at Talcher.”

Operational constraint

In the first half, inclement weather as well as critical law and order situation had led to suspension of production, road bridging and rake loading of coal. But more importantly, there is an operational constraint. Uninterrupted uniflow movement of empties and loaded rakes, so critical for achieving higher throughput than at present, will not be possible until and unless more entry and exit routes are created at Talcher. The railway plan in this regard has been thwarted by Mahanadi's inability to acquire land for whatever reasons.

Higher loading of imported coal could be a cause for both happiness and worry. Happiness because it adds to East Coast's volume; worry since empty rakes are required to be moved into ports for back-loading of imported coal. Earlier, rakes carrying iron ore to ports for exports were used for back-loading. But with iron ore export having dropped sharply, empty rakes are now being moved into ports for back-loading, adding to the cost. But then, in the absence of iron ore traffic for exports, the railway does not need to move empty rakes into iron ore mines for loading.

Offsetting local movement

The drop in iron ore loading for exports is a matter of concern but East Coast, unlike the South-Eastern Railway whose loss on this account is much more, is not unduly worried. For East Coast, in terms of volume, the loss of iron ore traffic for export so far has been around 2.3 rakes a day amounting to 3.5-4 million tonnes or so annually. In fact, this volume loss has been largely compensated by the increased domestic movement, so much so that total iron throughput in the current fiscal will be about 16 mt as compared to 17 mt or so in last fiscal. However, the revenue loss will be substantial because the railway freight for iron ore export is three and half times higher than that for domestic movement.

“For greater part of the current fiscal, our assets were idle as there was no demand for rakes with no indents pending but the scenario changed in past couple of months,” the spokesman said, pointing out that there was now demand for rakes in all major freight-loading zones with the result that idle rakes have vanished. “We've to now optimise the utilisation of our existing assets through improved practices,” the spokesman added.

> santanu@thehindu.co.in

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