India's coal supply chain: Strong on output, weak on delivery

• Out of 35 FMC projects identified, only 14 are operational
  
  
• EDFC has raised rake speeds from 25-30 km/h to 45-50 km/h
  
  

Every tonne of coal that reaches a power plant has travelled a complex, fragile journey. At each handoff - from mine to truck, truck to rake, rake to plant - there is a risk of delay. For decades, brute force kept the system moving. But as production has ramped up from 730 mnt in 2020 to over 1 billion tonnes in 2026, brute force has broken. The system now requires precision. And precision is exactly what India is struggling to build.

The first mile - Pithead to siding

The old way: Trucks carry coal from mine to railway siding. In Korba, Chhattisgarh, trucks wait 6-8 hours to unload. Dust coats everything. Each rake requires 150-200 truck trips.

The new way: First-Mile Connectivity (FMC) uses mechanised coal handling plants (CHPs) and conveyor belts to load coal directly into rakes. In Basundhara, Odisha, three CHPs (60 t capacity) have cut loading time from 8-10 hours to 90 minutes, reduced truck traffic by 70%, and saved millions of litres of diesel.

The bottleneck: 35 FMC projects identified; only 14 operational. In Korba, land litigation and truck operator protests have stalled progress for years. In Raniganj, fragmented small mines make centralised CHPs impossible.

Result: A two-speed system. Where FMC works, coal flows seamlessly. Where it doesn't, coal still moves by truck - slowly, expensively, and dirtily.

The middle mile - Railways and the DFC

The old way: The Grand Chord route - a century-old double line carrying both passenger and freight - operates at 120-130% capacity during summer. Passenger trains get priority. Coal rakes wait for hours. Transit times stretch from 2-3 days to 5-6 days.

The new way: The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) - 1,856 km of freight-only railway from Ludhiana to Dankuni - has raised rake speeds from 25-30 km/h to 45-50 km/h. Transit time from Jharia to Punjab has dropped from 6-7 days to 3-4 days.

The bottleneck: The EDFC is a superhighway, but the on-ramps are missing. Rakes must travel from colliery sidings to EDFC entry points (Dhanbad, Sonnagar) using the old congested network. That first segment can take 12-24 hours. Meanwhile, during summer, Railways adds passenger trains on non-DFC routes, and coal rakes are again deprioritised.

Result: The EDFC has delivered real gains, but until the missing links-dedicated rail corridors from coalfields to DFC entry points - are built, the superhighway remains underutilised.

The last mile - Siding to boiler

The old way: At the power plant, rakes must be unloaded. Rapid unloaders take 2-3 hours. Mechanical grabs take 6-8 hours. Manual unloading takes 12-15 hours.

The bottleneck: A rake sitting at a plant waiting to be unloaded is a rake not moving coal from the colliery. Slow unloading triggers a cascade: rakes pile up at the plant, empty rakes cannot return, collieries run out of rakes, production is curtailed. The agreed turnaround time is 48-72 hours; during summer, actual turnarounds often stretch to 96-120 hours. Twenty-four of those lost hours are often at the unloading end.

The stock norm myth: CEA mandates 15-30 days of coal stocks. During summer peak, many plants operate on 5-7 days - or less. Low stocks make the system brittle. A single delay can push a plant into critical territory.

Result: The last mile is the most neglected link, but also the easiest to fix. The CEA has now mandated rapid unloading systems at all plants by 2028. Plants that comply will see dramatic improvements; those that don't will remain bottlenecks.

Integration problem

The three segments are managed by different entities. Coal India owns the mines and FMC. Indian Railways owns the rakes and tracks. Power plants own unloading and stacking infrastructure. No single entity owns the entire chain. No single metric optimises all segments. No penalty exists when one segment's inefficiency creates costs for others.

A typical failure cascade:

1. A plant's unloader breaks down (last mile failure)
   
   
2. Rakes queue up. Turnaround time doubles
   
   
3. The colliery, waiting for rakes, stops production (first mile failure)
   
   
4. The plant burns through stock and requests more rakes
   
   
5. Railways reallocates rakes from other plants, spreading the shortage
   
   
6. The grid operator reduces load. Outages occur
   
   

Who is at fault? The plant? The colliery? Railways? All of them - and none of them. The system is designed for silos, not integration.

What is being done

Despite the challenges, progress is real

• FMC: Coal India has committed to completing all 35 projects by 2030. The lagging coalfields - Korba, Raniganj, parts of Jharia - need focused political and administrative attention
  
  
• EDFC: The corridor is operational. The next step is building the missing links - dedicated rail corridors from major coalfields to DFC entry points. Ten such links have been identified and fast-tracked
  
  
• Rake management: Railways is introducing real-time rake tracking, allowing coal companies and plants to see every rake's location and status. Dynamic scheduling - adjusting allocations based on real-time plant stocks - is being piloted
  
  
• Unloading: CEA directives require all coal-based plants to install rapid unloading systems by 2028, with penalties for non-compliance.
  
  

Jigsaw not yet solved

India's coal logistics system is a jigsaw with pieces that do not quite fit. The first-mile pieces are in place in some coalfields, missing in others. The middle-mile pieces - the DFC - are largely in place, but the connections to the first mile are incomplete. The last-mile pieces are the most neglected, but also the easiest to fix.

Every summer, the system is tested. Some years it holds. Other years it cracks. The difference is not the level of investment - India has invested heavily - but the degree of integration.

A coal supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Today, India's weakest links are still too many. But the direction of travel is clear: towards mechanization, dedicated freight, real-time visibility, and seamless flow.

Until that day arrives, the ritual of the summer coal crisis will continue. Not because there is no coal in the ground, and not because there are no rakes on the tracks. But because the jigsaw has not yet been fully solved.