Northeast Frontier Railway has transported more than 6847 nos. of inbound freight trains since the beginning of the lockdown period i.e. from 25th March to 30th November 2020. Out of this 1102 freight carrying trains were unloaded during the month of November only which is the highest unloading done during a month. This is 35.21% more than the unloading of freight trains done during the corresponding month of last year (815 freight rakes were unloaded in NFR during November 2019).
- Goods like FCI rice, Sugar, Salt, Edible oil, POL, Food grains, Fodder, Pulses, Fertilizer, Cement, Coal, Stone chips, Iron/Steal, Potato, Onion, Sand, Gypsum, Maize, Pulses, Auto, Container etc were being transported regularly to not only meet the essential requirement of common people but also to keep the local economic activity of all the regions going.
- During November, in Assam 570 rakes of freight carrying trains were unloaded of which 301 were loaded with essential commodities.
- 27 rakes in Nagaland, 61 rakes in Tripura, 3 rakes in Manipur, 1 rake in Mizoram and 5 rakes in Arunachal Pradesh were also unloaded during last month.
- 243 freight rakes in West Bengal and 187 freight rakes in Bihar were also unloaded during last month within the jurisdiction of NFR to meet the requirement of people of these regions.
- In Assam area 85 rakes loaded with Food items, 93 rakes of cement, 43 rakes of automobiles, 24 rakes of sugar, 27 rakes of coal for Power house, 22 rakes of fertilizer, 14 rakes of Edible oil and 50 rakes of petroleum products were unloaded.
- In Tripura 15 rakes of Food items, 36 rakes of stone, 1 rake of sugar, 2 rakes of automobiles and 1 rake of fertilizer were unloaded.
- In Arunachal Pradesh 1 rake of FCI items and 4 rakes of petroleum products were unloaded.
- In Manipur 1 rake loaded with FCI items, 2 rakes of cement were unloaded. In Mizoram 1 rake loaded with FCI items were unloaded.
- In Nagaland 8 rakes of FCI items, 7 rakes of petroleum products and 5 rakes of cement were unloaded during last month.
- In Bihar portion of NFR 60 rakes of cement, 35 rakes of Food items, 35 rakes of fertilizer, 16 rakes of salt and 9 rakes of sugar, 18 rakes of stone, 12 rakes of Iron/Steel were unloaded.
- In North Bengal portion of NFR 43 rakes of Food items, 75 rakes of cement, 41 rakes of fertilizer, 2 rakes of salt, 7 rakes of sugar and 26 rakes of Petroleum products were unloaded.
- Improved terminal handling facility and improvement in mobility due to enhanced maintenance efforts & continuous monitoring at all levels resulted in increased unloading and reduction in turnaround time.
- Average speed of goods carrying trains in NFR also increased to almost double.
- Indian Railways has played a very significant role in providing its uninterrupted services for transportation of all essential commodities, lifesaving drugs and medical equipment during the challenging times of Covid-19 pandemic.
- It is evident that huge transportation of food-grains, POL and other essential and various other items by NFR was the main reason for avoiding any scarcity of such items within its service area during the lock-down period and beyond.
Recent Achievement:
Indian Railway has recently modified the policy of Parcel van leasing through Premium trains like Shatabdi, Jan-Shatabdi, Duronto Express, Rajdhani Express trains to provide more facilities to transporters.
- As per the new modified policy, leasing of LHB type parcel vans has been permitted by trains like Rajdhani express and Duronto Express trains on end to end basis.
- Leasing of parcel vans has also been permitted by ordinary passenger trains subject to no loss of punctuality of those trains due to loading/ unloading operation.
- Moreover Indian Railway has also decided to amend the Security deposit/Performance Guarantee clause for leasing of the Parcel Cargo Express Trains.
- Now the successful bidder has to deposit the security deposit equivalent to 5% of the contract value within 30 days from the date of issuance of the “Letter Of Acceptance”.
- The Security deposit/Performance Guarantee for leasing out one Brakevan (SLR) has also been modified to 5% of the annual contractual value in place of 10% as required earlier subject to a minimum of Rs. 1 lakh.
- For single Parcel Van (VP) the amount has also been modified to 5% of the annual contractual value in place of 10% as required earlier subject to a minimum of Rs. 4 lakh.
- All the above modifications are expected to immensely help the transporters to book their commodities in a more cheaper, faster and hassle free manner to transport their commodities.
Source: Northeast Frontier Railway-Update
