It’s 9 am and Manjunath Nagraj waits in his truck outside Mormugao Port’s Gate No. 1 to pick up steam coal for Ms Metals and Steel Pvt Ltd, a steel factory at Koppal in Karnakata. The coal was loaded from Richards Bay, one of the world’s largest coal export facilities in South Africa, and lugged into MV Jaguar Max, a Bahamas-flag vessel now docked at the port. The importer, records show, is Singapore-based Adani Global Private.
Unlike JSW, Adani’s needs from Mormugao are more that of a “trader” ― they use their berth for “coal needs of a third party,” says a port official. And Manjunath is the last logistical link in this freight chain that leads to a clutch of steel factories in Koppal, 320 km away by road.
Transporters say road provides a cost advantage of 50 paise for each kilometre compared to rail. But Mormugao makes economic sense for the importer in more ways than one. The main port in Karnataka, on the western coast in Mangalore, is 500 km from Koppal. In business terms, this means the cost of 10 trips a month from Mormugao equals four from Mangalore.
But this “freight advantage,” comes at a cost.
Goa currently has two national highways, NH 17 and NH 4A, which divide the state vertically and horizontally. An extension of NH17 and NH4A connect the port to Karnataka, climbing the Western Ghats, after crossing the Goa-Karnataka border at Anvoldem. Under night’s cover, these roads are a veritable coal corridor ― it takes 13 hours for a coal-laden truck to travel across the state, climb the Ghats, and enter Karnataka by dawn.
There are no official estimates for the number of trucks currently carrying coal from the port every month but the 2016 Sagarmala report on coastal upgradation gives an indication of what’s in store. It states that the rail route can carry a maximum of 30 million tonnes of coal a year, even after the tracks are doubled, due to the difficult Ghats stretch. This leaves 21 million tonnes to be transported through road and water to match the port’s import projections for 2030 ― the coal trucks come in different capacities, starting with 20 tonnes.
The Indian Express took the main coal road route from Vasco via Dabolim, Verna, Nuvem, Khandepar and Mollem before it crosses into Dharwad onwards to Bellary.
