By Dominick Rodrigues
Mumbai : The Western Railway is keeping the nation’s essential commodities lifeline moving by ramping up its parcel services on its routes and has run – since lockdown –891 parcel ’special’ trains till date. In continuation to this, on 12th February, 2021 two parcel special trains departed from WR viz. Bandra Terminus to Jammu Tawi and Rajkot to Coimbatore, while upto 11th Feb, 2021 in the current year, freight loading has been 69.36 MT as compared to 68.02 MT last year.
Sumit Thakur – Chief Public Relations Officer, Western Railway, said here that since 23rd March, 2020 to 11th Feb, 2021, 2.56 lakh tonnes of essential commodities have been transported by Western Railway through its 891 parcel special trains, which mainly included agricultural produce, medicines, fish, milk etc. The revenue generated through this transportation, has been approx. Rs 90 crore.
During this period, 165 milk special trains were run by Western Rly, with a load of more than 1.23 lakh tonnes and 100% utilization of the wagons. Similarly, 587 Covid-19 special parcel trains with a load of approx. 73 thousand tonnes were also run to transport various essential commodities. In addition to this, 103 indented rakes carrying more than 46 thousand tonnes were also run with almost 100% utilization, besides 36 “Kisan” rails run so far.
The lockdown period from 22nd March, 2020 till 11th February, 2021 witnessed total 31,008 rakes of goods trains used by WR to supply essential commodities amounting to 68.92 million tonnes. Total 63,921 freight trains have been interchanged with other zonal railways, in which 31,943 trains were handed over and 31,978 trains taken over at different interchange points.
The total loss of revenue over Western Railway on account of Corona Virus, has been approx. Rs 3917 crore, which includes Rs 644 crore for suburban section and Rs 3273 crore for non-suburban. In spite of this resulting in cancellation of tickets since 1st March 2020 till 11th Feb, 2021, Western Railway has ensured refund of approx. Rs. 618 crore. Till now, 97.61 lakh passengers have cancelled their tickets over entire Western Railway & have received their refund amount accordingly. Train movement affected by the Kisan agitation in Punjab has led to diversion of trains across the Western Railway routes. .
