Power crisis in India: Railways cancels more trains to facilitate movement of coal rakes  

Amid the ongoing coal and power crisis in the country, Indian Railways has cancelled more trains to facilitate movement of coal rakes to power stations. Around 1,100 trains will remain cancelled till May 24 for this purpose. In order to mitigate coal shortage, around 500 trips of express mails and 580 trips of passenger trains have also been cancelled.   

Railways had announced the cancellation of 240 passenger trains to facilitate the movement of ~400 rakes across India on April 29. This comes at a time when the coal stock at 108 out of 173 thermal power plants has reached critically low levels, according to an India Today report. Coal shortage at thermal plants is a result of increase in electricity consumption due to the heat wave.   

Many coal mines have also been affected because of workers’ strikes in several parts of India. States facing coal shortages in their electricity plants are Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.   

Meanwhile, Railways has also deployed 86 per cent of its open wagons to transport coal to various power plants in the country. Out of 1,30,403 BOXN or open wagons in its fleet, the Railways is using 1,13,880 for coal transportation, as part of a plan formulated by the national transporter in consultation with coal and power ministries.   

The Railways loaded an average of 28,470 wagons with coal to meet the demand from power plants daily as of May 4. A coal train usually gets up to 84 wagons. Railways has also used an innovative method of using long-haul trains for the purpose by running 3-5 trains together at 122 locations in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.   

(With inputs from Milan Sharma, agencies)  

Also read: Power ministry asks state, private sector utilities to import 19MT coal by June-end

Also read: Power crisis: Railways deploys 86% of its open wagons for coal transportation