Coal news and updates

Swarup assures of future rakes availability for coal

The railways’ rakes availability has improved to 210 per day from 190 per day last year, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said, while addressing an interactive session organised by the Coal Consumers’ Association of India (CCAI) in Kolkata on March 9, 2016.

Sashi Kumar, Former, CMD, CIL and Advisor, CCAI, put across the problems of rakes availability to the coal secretary. Kumar explained that the deal between coal consumers and the coal supplier such as CIL loses weight if they do not get commitment from Railways regarding coal rakes.

However, Swarup assured that rakes availability will be there. It may not be a formal agreement but rakes will be made available. The availability situation has improved and will improve further in future. 

On commercial mining, Swarup said: “It is not the most appropriate time to allow commercial mining. The reason behind this understanding is the last round of auctions, where the coal ministry did not get too many responses. Improved coal supply may be the reason behind this. However, necessary ground-work has been done and we will take a look at the market situation.”

SOurce: ICMW