IEEFA – Coal a heavy burden on Indian Railways, Dec 23

The Indian Railways is facing challenges in transporting coal due to network congestion, which is also affecting passenger services. The authors suggest that instead of expanding coal transportation, the focus should be on accelerating renewable electricity generation. This is because India's power demand is increasing faster than its renewable capacity additions. The government expects the Indian Railways to transport most of the additional coal production, and several rail infrastructure projects have been planned or are underway to facilitate coal evacuation. However, there are concerns about the feasibility of these ambitious coal-by-rail targets due to signs of network congestion returning to pre-pandemic levels. Factors such as higher freight loads, similar freight train speeds, lower passenger train speeds, passenger train cancellations during crises, and increased wagon turnaround times indicate the challenges faced by the rail network. Furthermore, Coal India Ltd (CIL), the largest contributor to new coal production, has set ambitious goals of moving an additional 400 million tonnes by rail in four years. However, the company currently relies heavily on truck transportation, and meeting these targets would require a significant shift towards rail transportation.