On 22nd February 2021, India’s Largest Coal Miner, Coal India Limited(CIL), Kolkata based public sector coal mining and reigning company signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), under the Ministry of Railways for fast and customised automated access to coal freight data through Freight Operation Information System(FOIS).
- This is the first of its kind data sharing which will support CIL to rationalise the coal supply matrix through rail mode.
- The contract period of this MoU is 1 year with annual technical support.
Objective – The MoU was signed for frieght monitoring and data sharing. It will help the coal miner monitor movement of coal rakes and coal despatch activity.
Features of the MoU:
i.This will enable CIL to monitor the movement of the coal laden rakes and coal dispatch activities.
ii.The data will provide the details of loading, weighment and details of unloading along with the turnaround time of rakes.
iii.These data will help to minimise the instances of underloading and overloading of rakes and untangle the knots thus benefiting CIL, Railways and the consumers.
iv.The resultant relevant information will replace the manual entry of railway receipts with online transfer and enable fast billing and bill monitoring processes.
v.The data shared by the CRIS will provide CIL information on sanctioned coal and rake programmes, rake demand, rake detention and diversion details which will help the coal companies to plan their supplies.
Key Points:
i.CIL has developed a portal which will support in sharing the FOIS data with the subsidiary coal companies.
ii.CRIS and CIL will collaborate for further improvement in data sharing with periodical review.
iii.Upto 20th Feb, the CIL’s coal movement through rail mode from its sidings, goods sheds and private washeries at 302.51 million tonnes (MT) accounted for 61 per cent of the total off-take quantity.
iv.When dovetailed with a merry-go-round system, at 92.8 MT, which is a dedicated rail mode transport, the percentage expands even higher to 79 per cent.
Recent Related News:
Coal India Limited (CIL), an Indian state-owned coal mining and refinery company, has entered into the partnership with NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog’s flagship initiative Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), to actively support the latter’s key innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across India.
A Statement of Intent (SoI) between the CIL’s Director (Technical) Binay Dayal and AIM’s Mission Director R Ramanan, was signed and exchanged in a virtual e-summit for the same on June 19, 2020.
About Coal India Limited (CIL):
CIL is the largest Coal Producer in the World. CIL is owned primarily by the Union Government of India & controls its operations through the Ministry of Coal.
Chairman & Managing Director– Pramod Agrawal
Established in November 1975
Headquarters– Kolkata, West Bengal
About Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS):
Managing Director- Mukesh Nigam
Head Office– New Delhi
