Karnataka: Indian Railways look for new streams of traffic

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the Indian Railways to explore new avenues of freight traffic through its zonal units.

The Palakkad division has recently transported Refined Palm Oil (packed in 15-litre tins. and 10-litre carton boxes) in 42 BCN rake from Panambur station to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Palakkad Station also loaded KAMCO power tillers to the northeastern states.

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To facilitate this process, zonal and divisional railways under the respective zones and division had set up business development units including one at Palakkad railway unit that has jurisdiction over Mangaluru.

A Business Development Unit (BDU) at Palakkad Railway Division has been set up to cater to the transportation needs of various sectors, including non-bulk goods traffic like white goods, finished goods, manufactured products, agricultural produce and raw materials.

The BDU will facilitate industry, trade representatives and rail freight customers to get in touch with the railways at appropriate zonal and divisional levels. It will also help in the expeditious clearance of their proposals for freight movement, which will benefit both the industry and railways.

According to Prathap Singh Shami, Divisional Railway Manager at Palakkad Railway division, “The BDU has been set up in line with BDUs at zonal and divisional levels as per the directions from the Ministry of Railways. In addition to Palakkad, BDUs are being set up at Thiruvananthapuram, Madurai, Tiruchchirappalli, Chennai and Salem.”

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The members of BDU will initiate steps to attract new streams of traffic by interacting with trade and industry at frequent intervals; to understand the existing pattern of goods transportation and explore the possibility of attracting additional freight traffic to the railways.

The BDU will also serve as a nodal point for speedy operationalisation of new traffic proposals after due analysis.

In Palakkad Division, good sheds (loading and unloading points) are available at Pollachi Junction, Palakkad Junction, Tirunaavaya, Angadippuram, Nilambur Road, Kallayi, West Hill, Tikkotti, Etakkot, Valapattanam, Nileshwar, Bunder (Mangaluru Central) and Panambur (Mangaluru Port). In order to ease the freight handling, more and more facilities are being added to the goods sheds as per the directives of the Minister of Railways, he added.