The South East Central Railway (SECR) will be installing GPS System in its ‘Merry Go Round’ (MGR) locomotives which carrying coal supplies to power plants in Chhattisgarh.
The MGR system comprises of a closed-circuit dedicated Rail Transportation System between the production and consumption points of power plants, officials stated.
Notably, RITES ltd-- the public sector Engineering Consultancy company specializing in the domain of transport infrastructure will also soon start the process of building Railway bridges for connecting the rail network to proposed plant site of NTPC ltd’s upcoming 3x800 MW super thermal power project at lara in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh.
The Railway project would be taken up for developing the MGR system. The South East Central Sector which includes Chhattisgarh is set to play a key role in Central government’s ambitious coal loading and transportation plans.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed recently between Ministry of Railways and Coal India limited (CIl) which will lead to procurement of 2000 wagons (33 rakes) in the first outgo, officials stated.
The agreement which will result into speedy supply of wagons for coal loading in dedicated circuits.
Initially, the rakes will be inducted and run in the 2 main coal loading Zones of Indian Railways i.e South East Central coal sector and East Coast circuit.
These rakes will be inducted in circuits for transporting coal from MCl Talcher & IB area and SECl to Paradip/Dharma ports, Vishakhapatnam area and the power houses of Nagpur/Raipur region.
Under this strategic partnership, the wagons will be procured by Indian Railways on behalf of CIl, the maintenance of these wagons will be done by Railways at its own cost. Also, the brake vans will be provided by Railways itself.
Coal India ltd is targeting production of 1 billion Tonnes of coal by 2020. Wagon availability will be a key factor for achieving this target by Coal India ltd. By signing of the MoU , the Railways and Coal India ltd will be entering into a strategic partnership which would ensure adequate wagon availability for meeting the transportation needs of coal produced by Coal India ltd.
Notably, the Central government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding each with the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh for critical coal connectivity projects to improve transportation of coal, officials informed.
Agreement for World Bank loan of US $ 1100 million for Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) (Phase-2) have also been signed, they stated.
Freight train with speed of maximum 100 kms per hour will pass through Chhattisgarh in the East-West Corridor (Kolkata-Mumbai).
The train will traverse through the States of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra as the Ministry of Railways has sanctioned implementation of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) with freight train speeds of maximum 100 Kmph.
Development of two key Rail corridors in mineral-rich Chhattisgarh is now set to expand the Railway line network by 45 per cent in the State, officials stated.
The completion of 235-km Dallirajhara-Raoghat-Jagdalpur, East and East-West Rail corridor (300 km) projects will comprise a total of 535 kilometers Railway-line during the next two to four years, they stated. Chhattisgarh currently has only 1187 route kilometers Railway lines.
Chhattisgarh is also set to earn estimated revenue of Rs 51,596 crore from its five mines auctioned among 29 in the country under the provisions of Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 during the mining lease period.
The specified end-users of the mines are in the non-regulated sector. The mines are Chotia, Gare Palma IV-4, Gare Palma IV-5, Gare Palma IV-7, Gare-Palma Sector-IV/8. So far 29 coal mines have been auctioned under the provisions of Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 and the Rules made thereunder.
The auction process for non-regulated sector viz. Iron and Steel, Cement and Captive Power was based on forward bidding process where bidders had to submit their final price offer above the applicable floor price. In case of Power sector which is a regulated one, reverse bidding methodology was adopted where bidders had to submit bids below the applicable ceiling price, which shall be taken as fuel cost in determination of power tariff.
In case, bid price reaches Rs0 in reverse bidding, the bidding is based on additional premium payable to the concerned State Government, over and above the fixed reserve price of Rs100 per tonne.
The revenue which would accrue to the coal bearing State Government concerned comprises of Upfront payment as prescribed in the tender document, Auction proceeds and Royalty on per tonne of coal production.
In addition, an estimated amount of Rs1,41,854 crores would accrue to coal bearing States from allotment of 38 coal mines to Central and State PSU’s.