Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Union Minister of Railways & Coal has launched ‘Grahak Sadak Koyla Vitaran App’ benefitting customers of Coal India Limited (CIL) lifting coal through road mode.Present during the launching of the App were Shri Susheel Kumar, Secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Coal and Shri Gopal Singh, Chairman, Coal India Limited.
The customer friendly app, launched recently in Kolkata on CIL’s Foundation Day, helps achievetransparency in despatch operations, as a tool to monitor, whether the despatches are made on the fair principle of ‘First in First Out’ andkeeps track of all the activities from issuance of Sale Order to physical delivery of coal by road.
It may be recalled that CIL in a move to rush more coal to power stations, coal supplies to plants located in shorter distances have been offered through road mode from available pithead stock. As a result, power plants located within 50 Kms to 60 Kms from the mines may take as much coal from the nearest mines as they can.
During 2016-17 despatch of coal through road mode had been about 140 Million Tonnes (MTs) out of the total despatch of 542 MTs by CIL accounting for 26%. The impetus given in the current fiscal has improved movement of coal through road considerably. As of end of October 2017 the movement of coal through road mode at a little over 93 MTs accounted for 29% of the total coal despatch of 317 MTs.The road despatch during the current fiscal till October 2017 went up by 12 MTs compared to same period last fiscal.
The main benefits of the App for the customers, against the Sale Orders issued, include easy accessibility of the information at the click of the button, apart from transparency in the system of loading programme and despatch. The app also helps in logistics planning for lifting of coal in tune with the loading programmes. It further helps in improved planning of procurement, production and stock management by the customers.
The main features of the app are that it provides date-wise, truck-wise quantity of coal delivered against the Sale Orders and information related to Scheme-wise, Colliery-wise, Grade-wise, customer-wise details of Sale Orders issued during a period.
In terms of loading it provides allotment verses lifting status in details from different sources truck by truck and summary of the despatch.
Under the guidance of Ministry of Coal, Coal India is addressing its customer needs in a big way and made ‘ease of doing business’ a major consumer commitment. The launching of the app is also one of the initiatives of CIL towards achieving the much cherished goal of ‘Digital India’ and transparency.