Coal min may assist railw ays for buying rakes
Coal ministry has proposed to assist railways in arranging finances for purchasing rakes to speed up dispatches of coal.
"One of our proposals with the the railways is that if they have funds constraint, then Coal India can arrange it for them for the purchase of rakes, " Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Tuesday said while addressing mediapersons.
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ministry of railways, Jaiswal said, is contemplating over the proposal, and added that "our proposal is such that we should get a positive indication from Railways."
"If railways agrees, then Coal India can purchase 20-25 rakes provided it is solely used to load coal, " he said.
The dispatch of coal to power sector in April, has grown by 12.8% over the same month last year. Coal dispatched to power sector in April was 26.6 million tonnes.
Earlier, Coal India, which accounts for over 80% of the domestic production, had said that it faced shortage of rakes for transportation of the dry fuel. The average rakes availability in 2010-11 was 161 rakes a day while in the previous fiscal the figure stood at 156.8 rakes a day.
"If we are provided with 200 rakes per day then our requirement would be fulfilled. But, at present, we are only getting 170 rakes a day. In April it reached around 180 rakes but in May it again declined. We are hopeful that we will get 190 rakes per day in June, " Jaiswal said.
Coal India has been facing evacuation problems due to the shortage of rakes. In 2010-11, it had around 70 million tonnes of coal piled up at the pitheads.
However, Coal India Chairman N C Jha later said that at a meeting held yesterday, the Railways had said that there was no shortage of rakes now, hence there would be no dearth of rakes' requirement for the coal sector.