Joining issues with Coal India Limited (CIL) on the topic of rake shortage, Eastern Railways said transportation capacities lost in the first six months could not be bunched in the last part of the year. It said that CIL had shifted from a linkage regime to a fuel supply agreement (FSA) regime. It had been decided by an inter-ministerial group that all FSAs would be routed through the Ministry of Railways for taking into account logistics issues. This was, however, not complied with by CIL, thereby hampering Railways planning for movement.
CIL had said recently that offtake in 2009-10 was affected by rake shortage.
In the FSA's, it has been envisaged that total dispatches for the entire year would be split in certain proportions. The requirements of rakes for loading by CIL for the entire year was around 175 rakes daily which as per their FSA's translated into loading of 175 rakes daily during the first quarter, 170 rakes daily during the second quarter, 175 rakes daily during the third quarter and 180 rakes daily in the fourth quarter. Due to major problems of transportation from CIL's mine to Railway sidings, CIL's daily loading of rakes stood at 153.6 in the first quarter, 145 in the second and 162 in the third even though rakes were available for loading.
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Thus, the net requirement of rakes in the fourth quarter accumulated to over 200 rakes daily against the original requirement of 180 rakes. Railways achieved a loading of about 179 rakes daily in March.