Research Note 1 Indian Institute of Management-Kashipur, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. 2 IEC International, Paris, France. 3 IEC, Infrastructure Economics Centre, Moscow, Russia. Corresponding author: Rajesh Gupta, Indian Institute of Management-Kashipur, 27, NAIR, Lalbaug, Vadodara 390004, Gujarat, India. E-mail: rajesh.gupta75@gov.in The Indian Economic Journal 1–10 © 2020 Indian Economic Association Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/0019466220953107 journals.sagepub.com/home/iej Limited Capacity of Railways for Coal Transportation in India: Evidence from ArcGIS-based Load Flow Study Rajesh Gupta 1 , Ekaterina Kozyreva 2 , Pavel Chistyakov 3 , Petr Lavrinenko 3 and Igor Smirnov 3 Abstract How much coal will India need to transport in future and is the rail network poised to handle that requirement are two important questions for the emerging economy. To find answers to these ques- tions, this study creates a distribution model of coal freight traffic on Indian Railways, analyzing the sufficiency of infrastructure for future economic needs. Using data on spatial distribution of coal mines, coal traffic volumes and rail sectional capacities, this study creates sectional capacity maps as main visual tool for analysis. Sections with bottlenecks are identified for next ten years’ coal transport need of the country. The simulation done in this study finds 15% under-delivery for the 900mT coal demand in the country by 2030 due to transport bottlenecks. Based on this analysis, the article presents the conclusions on possible influence of existing conditions of coal transportation on India’s economy in the long-term period and also considers the role of dedicated freight. JEL Codes: E17, L92, L98, R41, R42 Keywords: India coal needs, transport infrastructure in India, Indian railways, load forecast, network analysis I. Introduction India is the third largest energy consumer and the second largest coal consumer in the world (Enerdata, 2019). Currently, India consumes almost 900 million tonnes (mT) of coal annually, of which 700 mT are produced in the country and the rest is imported (CSO, 2019). India is also the second largest importer of thermal coal in the world (DISER, 2019). Coal consumption in the country (65 per cent by thermal