The Indian Railways has launched scheduled, commodity-specific, time-tabled cargo services. These are currently aimed at connecting production and consumption centres across North India.
An official statement said the newly introduced services include the Annapurna Service from Ludhiana to Varanasi, transporting food grains over 704 kilometres in an average 17 hours. The Gati-Vahan Service from Farrukhnagar (Haryana) to Lucknow for automobiles covers 557 km in 28 hours, down from the earlier 70-hour transit. The Niryaat Cargo Service from Garhi to Mundra Port for containers completes 1,061 km in 32 hours.
In addition to these, an Anantnag Cement Cargo Service from Roopnagar to Anantnag transports cement over 586 km in 31 hours. These services were started after deliberations with freight stakeholders, including the Food Corporation of India, automobile operators, container train operators and adjacent railway zones. “Initially introduced as trial services, these time-tabled cargo trains have now stabilised and are operating efficiently,” the
statement added.
With scheduled timings and advance information on train arrivals and departures, these services are aimed at enabling better logistics planning for both consignors and consignees, enhancing predictability and efficiency. The move supplements other measures of scaling up goods movement by the national transporter. A modified land monetisation policy allows setting up sorting, grading, packaging and labelling units at vacant railway land. The
step is aimed at encouraging movement of more ecommerce cargo through the national transporter.
This has become possible following a recent amendment to the 2022 Indian Railways land leasing policy, relaxing a rule that required lessees benefiting from concessional terms to provide services generating goods movement in at least one direction on the railway network.