Date:27/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/27/stories/2006052702340700.htm

Back Drop in daily rake movement worries East Coast Railway

Santanu Sanyal

Essar move to transport iron ore via pipeline causing loss of traffic

Cause for concern
Average daily movement of rakes has fallen from 15 to around 10.
East Coast Railway may lose 5 mt of ore traffic if the situation persists beyond September.

Kolkata , May 26

A sharp fall in the movement of iron ore rakes along the 450-km long Kottavalasa-Kirandul (K-K) railway line in Andhra Pradesh is causing concern to the East Coast Railway (ECR).

The average daily movement of rakes has dropped from 15 to around 10. If this situation persists beyond September, ECR, it is feared, might lose an estimated five million tonnes (mt) of ore traffic in the whole year.

In a year (2006-07) when ECR is supposed to handle an additional eight mt of traffic to reach the total of 86 mt (78 mt in 2005-06), a five mt drop in the throughput of one item might prove costly.

The problem has arisen mainly because the Essar group has opted for pipeline movement of its entire requirement of iron ore fine in slurry form.

Prior to this, Essar used to transport by rail more than 10,000 tonnes of ore fine every day from Bailadila mines.

"In one stroke, we now stand to lose nearly four mt of traffic in one year", said a spokesman of ECR. Also, there has been a drop in the movement of ore for exports.

"National Mineral Development Corporation is yet to firm up its long-term export contracts," he said.

Surplus rakes

The present situation, in addition to causing loss of traffic, has thrown up other problems for the Railways. ECR is saddled with surplus rakes, which have to deployed on various other circuits, not always an easy job. The rakes used in K-K Line are mostly Box N and BOY types. Which means there has to be matching demand for these wagons in other circuits.

Since the wagon requirement for transportation of ore fines has dropped, more wagons are being placed for transportation of lumpy ore, mainly to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. This has caused detention of wagons in the steel plant, the average detention period having jumped to 15 hours from the previous four hours. The ECR spokesman conceded that, if the present trend was indication, the throughputs of coal, both domestically produced and imports, would substantially rise in the current year.

For example, the Talcher mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd alone would produce an additional 3.5 to four mt in the current fiscal. Also, the gypsum traffic was showing an upward trend. But the projected increase in the throughputs of coal and other items might not be enough to help ECR achieve the targeted 86 mt, particularly after losing about five mt of ore traffic on the K-K line.