Ranchi, August 23: Coal supply from Jharkhand has got affected due to law and order problem in some areas for the last one months and attention is not being paid to start uninterrupted supply despite requests by affected parties.
A letter by general manager of East Central Railway L.C. Trivedi to director general of police of the state, M.V.Rao, informing about frequent stoppage of coal loading from various sidings on Dhanbad division of East Central Railway by agitators, suggests so.
DGP Rao could not be contacted for his comments when attempted.
The letter suggests that Coal siding from Rajdhar Siding of CCL and Banadag siding of NTPC have been stopped by villagers respectively since June 26 and July 6 of this year. It has resulted in revenue loss of Rs 6.5 crore to Rs 8 crore per day to railways and non supply of coal to government power houses affecting power generation. GM of East Central Railway wrote the letter to the state police chief on July 20 this year. But despite all these problems could not be sorted out so far.
A CCL official confirmed this situation saying the problem is in the knowledge of CCL authorities also and they have asked the railways to take up the matter at its level also to find a proper solution. Apart from this the CCL authorities are also talking to local district administration to sort out the issue of villagers for resumption of smooth supply of coal.
A CCL employee said not only two sidings villagers adjoining Amrapali mines have stopped production and dispatch of coal from Amrapali mines for the last three days and director (finance) of the company has shared the problem to district authority of Chatra.
“12 rakes per day is supplied from Shivpur siding through rail mode and about 10,000 tons per day through road mode. Due to hindrances caused by villagers, CCL has been losing opportunity to dispatch about 60,000 tes/day from Amrapali mines, which has already resulted in loss of opportunity to the state to earn about 2.31 crore as royalty , DMF, NMET and management fees besides GST. Further, if the hindrance continues, both CCL and state will be losing heavily on account of revenue collection. Moreover, rakes from Shivpur siding are exclusively being supplied to power consumers to meet the power demand of the country during this troubled time of Covid-19 pandemic. Due to non–supply of coal problem will aggravate,” the CCL employee said.
