The Indian Railways will be introducing a ‘Freight e-market place’ — a one-stop logistic solution providing the first mile to last mile connectivity for bringing out more efficiencies in freight movement, and by December 21, a new freight operation information system is going to be unveiled.
Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav disclosed on Thursday that a business development partnership portal is also on the anvil to facilitate dialogue with the stakeholders across the country.
Participating in a virtual conference, Mr. Yadav observed that the freight movement so far this year has been encouraging despite the lockdown and prevailing pandemic restrictions with loading in the past 18 days being 7% (3.6 million tonnes) more than previous year in almost all major heads.
The cumulative loading from April-August in foodgrains, fertilizer and other goods has been showing a perceptible rise, he said, and pointed out that the various zones and divisions have been asked to pull no stops to garner more freight from non-traditional goods, apart from coal, iron ore etc., to make up for the loss in passenger traffic revenue.
“The current doubling of speed of freight trains to 46 kmph will be maintained even after the eventual running of the passenger trains once the pandemic is stabilised by having a separate timetable. We will maintain individual timelines for passenger trains, freight trains and for maintenance works,” said Mr. Yadav.
The plan of the railways is to provide rakes or freight coaches/trains on demand and for this purpose, an integrated plan of action has been put into place to double the current freight movement by improving infrastructure capacities of extra lines, modern wagons, quick turnaround times by developing 405 terminal goods sheds etc., within the next four years.
The chairman informed that about 10 port connectivity projects, 51 coal connectivity projects, doubling of 11,500 km and multi-tracking of 2,500 km are slated to be completed by March 2024.
Much before that in June 2022, the east and west corridor of Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) between Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata will become operational allowing more freight trains to be introduced at enhanced speeds and capacities even while also freeing the passenger network to introduce more trains, he added.