Editor's Pick: Passenger trains cancelled for urgent coal transport

April 30, 2022 April 30, 2022

Editor's Pick

30 APRIL 2022

In the Editor's Pick newsletter, The Hindu explains why a story was important enough to be carried on the front page of today's edition of our newspaper.

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Passenger trains cancelled for urgent coal transport

With temperatures soaring in the north, east and west of the country and amid the possibility of a power crisis due to shortage of coal, the Indian Railways have cancelled around 42 passenger trains to ensure faster delivery to and from coal producing regions of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Among the trains that have been cancelled to facilitate movement of freight trains carrying coal, 34 are from the coal-rich South East Central Railway and eight from Northern Railways where many of the power plants are based. According to official data, the Railways have raised the average daily loading of coal rakes to over 400 per day, which is the highest in the past five years. Railway officials said the national transporter has put 533 rakes for coal duty daily with as many as 427 rakes loaded on Thursday carrying a total of 1.62 million tonnes. Even though the Railways have said that this is an 'interim measure' and cancellations have taken place mostly in non-priority sectors and less busy routes, many passengers have been left in the lurch ahead of the summer holiday season.

The coal crisis has been building up over the past month – in March 2022, coal output contracted by 0.1%, compared to a 0.3% growth in March 2021. In the middle of April, more than 100 thermal power plants reported that the coal stock had fallen below the critical mark of 25% and in over 50 plants, it had fallen below the 10% mark. Due to low levels of coal inventories, power generated from thermal plants had declined. This had led to power shortages in several States including Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh. With the coal crisis hitting the country as summer is peaking, several States including Maharashtra and Gujarat said they were planning imports; and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Modi seeking adequate supply of coal to the State. The Opposition Congress claimed that of a total of 173 power plants, 106 plants had less than 25% of their reserves and that States were being forced to buy power at higher rates. As the heat wave intensifies, the Ministries of Power, Coal and Railways will have to jointly find a way out of the coal shortage and power crisis and that makes this story important.

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