Railway Minister Piyush Goyal in another attempt to boost freight revenue met industry leaders of the logistics sector, including representatives of courier companies. The move is in light of the losses that the railways is bearing in the passenger segment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the meeting, the logistics and courier companies were assured to be provided by reliable, fast, affordable and easy to handle parcel services by the railways, said a statement from the Railway Ministry.
To work swiftly on the best guidelines for ease of doing business, a joint working group is going to be formed, which will comprise of Railway officials and representatives of logistics and courier providers.
The meeting which was held late Wednesday night saw the participation from companies like DHL, Blue Dart, DTDC and FedEx. It discussed and explored possibilities of expanding business of private parcel services through the Indian Railways.
The minister said that win-win solutions were needed to ensure sustainable business development for all.
The Indian Railways ran 5,292 parcel trains between March 22 and September 2, and out of these, 5,139 were time-tabled trains.
In total, 3,18,453 tonnes of consignments were loaded on these trains and INR 116.19 crore was earned. The Railways’ freight loading for August was 94.33 million tonnes, which was more than the loading for the same month last year.
In total, 1,41,049 rakes with were loaded with 451.38 million tonnes of freight by the Railways from March 25 till September 1.
