Dedicated coal corridors needed to meet power demand: Indian Railways study
Railway Board has stressed on the need for dedicated coal corridors to meet the growing power demand in the country. The majority of the coal flows from the states of Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh to the north, west, and southeast of the country, there is a need to develop tracks exclusively for coal movement on these routes, the report on estimation of coal transportation by Rail-2030 said.
“It is necessary to create coal corridors in these routes in line with Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC),” the report said adding that the East-Coast DFC corridors as well as the eastern part of the East-West DFC corridors have to be developed on priority to provide access to coal mainly from Talacher to Ports dotting the eastern coastline.
According to the estimation, energy requirements of India will annually increase to approximately 3000 billion units (BU) by 2030.
The population of the country is projected to touch 1.51 billion in 2030 and the per capita energy consumption will be around 2000 units per year.
“Any shortfall will severely impact the growth of the country, which can lead to shortages or outages in 2030 in all sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture, transport, among others,” the study said.
This study also estimates that India’s coal consumption will be increased to 1853 million tons (mt) considering the high economic growth rate and per capita energy consumption in 2030. The new estimate is higher that the projections in the National Rail Plan (NRP) which were pegged at 1547 mt.
To address this demand, the Traffic, Transportation and Business Research (TT&BR) Unit of the Railway Board had identified and listed 615 priority projects in an earlier report.
