The Business Development Unit (BDU) of Bengaluru Division held a virtual meeting with its freight customers today (13.07.2020) at the Conference Hall in the Divisional Office.
Shri Ashok Kumar Verma, Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru Division, Shri Akhil M Shastri, Convener of BDU along with Members namely Dr. A.N. Krishna Reddy, Sr. Divisional Commercial Manager, Shri Mukesh Kumar, Sr. Divisional Finance Manager and Shri Jayanth Ramachandran, Sr. Divisional Mechanical Engineer attended the Meeting.
Representatives of freight customers of the Division namely Messrs. CONCOR (Container Corporation of India), TVS Logistics, IVCL Logistics, TCI Logistics, Nandini Traders (Onion Exporters from Nelamangala), Elite & Viking (Granite loaders from Settihalli) Puyvast Maritime India Pvt Ltd, Distribution Logistics India Ltd., were also present.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Ashok Kumar Verma said that the meeting of this kind will be held regularly with freight customers. He opined that this will enhance market share of Railways in non-bulk traffic. He assured that the Division will put in allo-out effort to increase the freight loading. He also informed that 19 NMG rakes were loaded in June, 2020. He hoped that this good performance will continue in the coming months.
Most of the freight customers informed that the demand has decreased in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and hoped that it will increase in the coming times.
To give a push to Freight traffic and enable ease of doing business, Bengaluru Division of South Western Railway has set up a Business Development Unit (BDU) recently, as per the directives of Railway Board.
The focus of this multi-disciplinary unit will be to double the freight carried by Indian Railways.
Senior Divisional Operations Manager Mr. Akhil M Shastry will be the convener of the Unit. The Unit also has officers from Commercial, Mechanical and Accounts departments as its members. The committee will act as a nodal point for interacting with existing customers and will reach out to new customers for achieving the stated goal.
At South Western Railway, headquarters/Hubballi the Chief Freight Transportation Manager will be in-charge.
Railway Board has also set up a Committee to resolve all policy issues raised by Divisions in maximum one weeks’ time.
The Railways have said that every effort would be made to remove the bottlenecks and improve loading facility at all loading points. Customers have been asked to put forward their genuine grievances for redress.
