Old King Coal

With unquenchable thirst for energy in numerous Asian developing countries, clearly life after coal looks long, and unrelenting. It‘s clear, India will still burn a lot of dirty fuel; coal will continue to be a mainstay of railways‘ freight

- RAGHU DAYAL

Notwithstanding all the hype to phase it out to mitigate carbon emissions in energy generation, King Coal will continue to reign over India’s power sector for the foreseeable future, and dominate IR’s freight business. Bringing in bagfuls of easy money, coal has lulled Railways into an unconscionable complacency.

When it needed to foster a contemporary milieu of integrated intermodal logistics through a long term business strategy for life beyond coal, it has, instead, kept its vision key-holed on a few bulk goods.

It has been steadily losing an estimated 1,500 million tonnes of break-bulk LDHV (low density high value) cargo, most of which is transported by road, often over sub-continental distances.

Call it the world’s dirtiest fuel or term it the black diamond, coal commands pride of place among nature’s bounties, a critical ingredient in power generation, energizing our homes and hearths, farms and factories.

An Energy Transition Working Group meeting held under India’s G20 presidency in New Delhi on 15 May underscored how, besides enabling vital energy security and impacting socioeconomic life of communities around, the coal sector provides revenue to several states, contributes Rs 400/tonne to GST compensation, and is the biggest contributor to rail freight.

Yes, coal is the biggest contributor to IR’s freight. It accounted for more than 48 per cent of its total freight lifting in 2022-23 (732 m.t. of coal; 1,512 m.t. total freight), and over half of total freight revenues (Rs 82,750 crore from coal; Rs 165,000 crore from total freight).