The Indian Railways has repaired 2,179 damaged wagons to carry more coal from mines to power plants at a cost of ₹150 crore, officials said, even as an unusually hot summer has led to unprecedented demand for electricity that has seen authorities scrambling to build coal inventory at energy utilities to prevent outages.
“With the power crisis and the pressure of transporting coal faster, Indian Railways is continuously working to speed up wagon repairs so that supply of coal to power plants is not affected,” an official of the national transporter said on condition of anonymity. “We have set up five new facilities to repair damaged wagons.”
Summer set in early this year in India, and March was the hottest on record. The high temperatures are expected to continue through May, the weather bureau has predicted. Peak power demand was a record 191,216 MW on Sunday, and the shortfall was 207 MW. Coal-fired plants are the mainstay of electricity generation in the country and plants have been short on inventory, leading to a crisis.
