Indian Railways is working on ambitious target of doubling the freight volume being carried by Railways by 2024 To achieve this, Indian Railway is strengthening its share in transport of conventional commodities like Coal , POL, Steel , Cement , Iron ore , Food grains ,Fertilizers etc. beside entering in big way in transport of Non bulk commodities. This traffic segment which is very large in volume and mostly moved through road transport has huge potential for Railways which can be tapped by adopting to a suitable business model.
Transport of these commodities through rail will not only be cost effective but will also be environment friendly.This however will require knowledge and experience of industries & experts in this field asRailways has limited experience of handling such non bulk traffic.Keeping this in view a multidisciplinary business development unit is being developed at zonal and division level consisting of functionaries from all concerned departments and a similar Business development Unit has already been formed at Railway board consisting of executive director level officers from concerned departments.
These BDUs formed at divisional, zonal level will examine all proposals to tap the non-bulk freight, will examine and develop business model to capture the opportunity and will seek approval from Railway board level BDU in matters involving more than one zonal Railway and requiring any policy decision. North Central Railway has already initiated the process of forming BDUs at zonal HQ level and in all three divisions Prayagraj, Jhansi and Agra.
BDUs so formed and contact details of members of BDUs etc. shall be circulated widely so as all proposals received for new business opportunity are dealt expeditiously and implemented on priority.During the Covid-19 lockdown Railways has already made headway in this direction through running of timetabled parcel services and providing real time assistance in transport of small and medium sized consignments through various measures like introduction of electronic RR, delivery of goods in case of non-availability of paper RR , improved average speed of parcel trains ,information sharing on parcel services through NTES, national help line139 & 138 etc. As on 30.06.20 North Central Railway with motto of transporting even a single packet of parcel has loaded 777.5 tonnes of parcel including 177 tonnes medical goods through its 40 notified parcel stations.
