Indian Railways adopts new innovative models to maximize freight revenue

In an apparent effort to maximize its freight revenue, Indian Railways has expanded its basket of freight that is used by it to move goods from from one location of country to another.

In a first, Pepsi bottles were transported in 5 parcel vans from Azara Station in Assam to Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday (August 15).

In order to attract more companies to choose Indian Railways as the means of transportation to move the commodities in country, Indian Railways has announced a series of benefits, ranging from lenient freight rates to even promise of freight delivery in a fixed time frame.

Recently, Railways has also started Kissan special trains that aim to move agri products at much cheaper rates, thus helping farmers and the agricultural sector.

The country's first Kisan Special Parcel Train was run between Maharashtra's Devlali and Bihar's Danapur on August 7.

The train for Devlali started at 11 am on August 7 and reached Danapur the next day at 6.45 pm, covering a distance of 1519 kilometres in about 32 hours. The train made soppages at different stations carrying vegetables, fruits etc. The parcel train has a composition of 10 +1 coaches.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2020-21 had mentioned the Kisan Rail project.

The government had proposed that to build a  seamless  national  cold  supply  chain  for  perishables, inclusive of milk, meat and fish, the Indian Railways will set up a Kisan Rail - through PPP  arrangements. There shall be refrigerated coaches in Express and Freight trains as well.