By Amulya Pati
Jajpur (Odisha), June 17: Production at the Nilachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL), located in Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex, is likely to be hit following the shortage of coal which is used to fuel the coke oven and blast furnace of the plant.

It is for the first time the public sector steel plant is going to face such embracing situation. Both the coke oven and the blast furnace of NINL consume a special imported coal as fuel.

“The plant is likely to plunge into severe crisis because of the want of stock of the coal. The fuel in the stockyard for the coke oven and the blast furnace will hardly go for six days,” NINL sources said.

According to sources, NINL imports the coal from Australia for consumption of its coke oven and blast furnace. The consignment comes to Paradip Port by cargo and the same unloads the own storing plot of NINL inside the port. The imported coal comes to the plant directly on railway under East Coast Zone. But the railway has not been transporting the stocked coal from the port on the pretext of shortage of rack for the last couple of months.

As a result, 1.5 lakh tonnes of imported coal have been lying in the company plot in the harbour for the last three months. This apart, another two ships with coal from Australia have been waiting to unload in the NINL plot at the port, but are unable to do so due to want of space at the site.

“NINL plant requires two racks of fuel for its daily consumption. The fuel, a high grade coal and imported one comes to our plant directly from Paradip port on railway. The railway authorities have not been transporting about 1.5 lakh tonne of coal which is lying in our plot in the port on the plea of shortage of rack. If railway fails to transport our consignment further the plant will come to a grinding halt,” said Bijay Kumar Panda, Managing Director of NINL.

Interestingly, the railway authorities are providing with racks to the private steel plant for their transportation from the Paradip port to Kalinga Nagar.

“While the railway authorities are sparing racks to the private steel plants located in Kalinga Nagar regularly, why the public sector NINL is being ignored by the state-owned Railway,” Panda questioned.