Electricity from coal: No word from railways on transporting coal

Official says PR lacks resources to buy locomotives and hopper vans.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways (PR) has yet to respond to the provincial government’s request for the provision of a guaranteed coal-carriage facility for 11 coal-powered plants being established across the province.

The government intends to generate electricity using coal. It has selected 11 sites to set up coal-fired power plants. Each plant will have the capacity to produce 150 megawatts.



The Revenue Department has identified 11 sites of 100 acres each in Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Gujrat, Lahore, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Kasur, Vehari and Sargodha.

The Energy Department says the project will produce 1,650MW of electricity.

A meeting at the Chief Minister’s Office on October 18 decided to request the PR to reserve 44 locomotives and 1,747 hopper wagons for transporting 5.5 million tonnes of coal from Karachi to the power plants throughout the year. The cost of one locomotive was calculated Rs550 million; the PR needs Rs24.2 billion to procure them.

“A hopper van costs Rs12 million. We need Rs20.96 billion to procure 1,747 vans,” a PR told The Express Tribune requesting anonymity.

He said the department faced a deficit and lacked resources to procure the locomotives and vans.

However, the official said the PR was working on the government’s request.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2014.