RELAXATION TO FREIGHT CUSTOMERS OF INDIAN RAILWAYS
v The concessions are meant to boost the freight transport across the country by Railways.
The entire country is in an unprecedented lockdown due the outbreak of Covid-19. However, to keep the supply chain intact, Indian Railways is focusing in transportation of all commodities (both essential and non-essential) by running freight and parcel trains.
In this endeavor, South Western Railway under the leadership of Shri Ajay Kumar Singh, General Manager has been progressively transporting a large number of freight and parcel trains to different parts of the country.
From 20th March to 20th April, a total 444 rakes of freight trains with essential commodities like Coal, Food Grains, Fertilizers and POL have loaded and a total 999 rakes have unloaded by the Zone.
Apart from this, about 23 parcel trains to Nizamuddin, Howrah, Gorakhpur, New Jalpaiguri, Jaipur etc. are being operated from SWR, for continues supply of life essential items like medicines, vegetables, fruits, perishable items, postal bags etc. in every corner of the country. About 718 Tonnes of essential commodities have loaded by these parcel trains.
Shri Suresh Angadi, Hon’ble Minister of State of Railways has been emphasizing that Railways in this period of crisis shall give top most priority to transportation of essential commodities especially agricultural produce.
In order to further boost the freight loading and also to encourage & support the freight customers in the emergent situation, Indian Railways has relaxed certain rules in freight loading. These include:
1) Train load benefits for two-point rakes: The distance between originating points for granting of train load benefits for the freight trains loaded from two different originating points or moving to two different destinations has been extended up to 500 Kms. Earlier, it was not more than 200 kms in case of originating points and not more than 400 Kms in case of destination points.
2) Increasing the coverage for Mini-rakes: Mini Rakes with composition of 20 covered wagons are usually meant for transporting loads in small quantities at Train load rate. Now, these rakes are permitted to travel up to 1500 Kms irrespective of inter-zonal or intra-zonal traffic with a condition that this relaxation shall exclude Traditional Empty Flow Direction (TEFD) traffic. Earlier, it was 600 Kms for inter-Zonal traffic and 1000 Kms for intra-zonal and excludes TEFD traffic.
3) Reduction in minimum number of wagons for train load benefits: For the freight trains loaded with BCNHL wagons, the minimum number of wagons required for getting train load benefits has been reduced to 42 wagons from the earlier requirement of 57 wagons.
All these relaxations have immediately come into force from 16th April 2020 and shall remain in force till 30th September, 2020. South Western Railway regularly transports commodities like food grains, sugar, fertilizers and Cement among other commodities through covered wagons. Relaxation in the transportation rules as mentioned above are likely to give encouragement to the freight customers by providing benefits in terms of both freight amount as well as by increasing their jurisdiction for availing the benefits.
