Railways spent Rs 150 crore to repair over 2,000 damaged wagons for coal movement

The Indian Railways spent around Rs 150 crore over the last four months repairing over 2,000 damaged wagons to expedite coal movement to power plants, according to officials.

This comes at a time when India is facing an acute shortage of power. On April 28, India faced a shortage of 192.1 million units of power as peak demand reached a new all-time high of 204.6 GW. On average, India’s thermal power plants had less than eight days worth of coal stock on Thursday against the norm of 24 days.

According to railway ministry data around 9,982 such wagons were listed as damaged in January, which reduced to 7,803 by May 2, with the Railways managing to repair 2,179 wagons in time for the coal demand to peak in the country.