Why BHEL is now also in the road-building business
Its not our job,but there is absolutely no way out, a senior BHEL executive said
In April,when it received a shipment of a 450-tonne stator from technology partner Siemens at Mumbai port,the Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd BHEL decided against unloading it there due to logistical constraints. Instead,it chose to transport the consignment by barge to Karwar. From there to Raichur,the final destination in Karnataka,BHELs logistics contractor is building 15 bypasses en route to ensure that the cargo,still in transit,reaches Raichur safe and sound.
Constructing bypasses to move large-sized cargo has become a routine affair for engineering firms such as BHEL,mainly because there are no reliable estimates on the adequacy of most road bridges,specifically on their weight-bearing capacity. Its not our job to construct bypasses,but there is absolutely no way out, a senior BHEL executive said.
Earlier,when the turbines for ONGCs 726 MW gas-based power project at Palatana in Tripura were to be transported,special permission was sought from Bangladesh to transport the consignment to Chittagong port and then overland roads connecting Tripura were not up to the mark.
For a country aspiring to achieve double-digit growth,delivery mechanisms are completely out of sync. With faster growth comes bigger scale in everything power projects,steel and cement plants,and metro rail systems. All these need smooth movement of heavy,or over-dimensional OD cargo. In India,the supporting infrastructure and administrative requirements have simply failed to keep pace, said an executive with a mid-sized cargo movement firm that has handled OD cargo consignments for firms such as NTPC and BHEL.
Across the world,hydraulic trailers have nearly replaced mechanical trailers as carriers of bulk,OD cargo but India is still stuck in the past. It takes upward of six months for completing registration formalities for hydraulic trailers. This is because for each new trailer,the process is cumbersome. A special gazette notification by the Department of Road Transport and Highways is required for each hydraulic trailer axle line to come on to the road,simply because the Motor Vehicles Act does not recognise hydraulic trailers.
Hydraulic trailers are basically modules of trailer chassis which can be joined longitudinally or laterally,offering immense flexibility for OD cargo to be adjusted and transported. Besides,moving OD cargo on most of the countrys roads is a tricky affair,given the lack of information on how much load a bridge can take and the reinforcement needed to take it through.
As a thumb rule,when bridges are constructed in the country,the maximum weight adequacy is defined in terms of it being able to take the weight and dimensions of the Arjun MBT tank. Bridges are built on purely this hypothetical assumption. While an Arjun tank might not pass through,there are no specifications on whether bridges can take the weight of an OD cargo, said Manish Kataria,joint secretary of the Hydraulic Trailer Owners Association of India.
Bridges do not have their load-bearing capacity explicitly mentioned,making it a bigger problem for infra firms. There is no single authority that can issue certificates for inter-state movement of large-sized cargo. The permission is issued only at the state-borders,after the consignment reaches there, a BHEL official said. The harassment that truckers face throughout the journey,from state transport officials,policemen and at tax barricades,only compounds the problem.
There is an urgent need to have well-set guidelines for heavy haulage by road that can combine requisite clearances from multiple agencies such as the Public Works Department,the National Highways Authority of India for using roads and bridges; the State Electricity Boards for overhead wires and the Railway Board for railway bridges. Lack of standardised rules across states makes this difficult, Kataria said.
Share
