By Dominick Rodrigues

Mumbai: The Western Railway held a webinar recently to assess and encourage railway freight customers potential during the present financial year. The virtual meeting was held following the freight customers specific gratitude for recent policy changes that encouraged them to offer higher volume of traffic to Railways.

This webinar was attended by around 80 participants from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These included over 40 representatives of various parties, including major customers like Adani Port, Reliance Industries, Gandhidham Chamber of Commerce, IFFCO, GNFC, ONGC, IOC, Ultratech cement, Wonder cement, CTA Logistics, GPPL, KRIBHCO, TCL etc.

Urging Rail customers to use the Railways e-portal (Freight Business Development portal) and take advantage of the recent policy reforms issued by Railway Board for development of goods sheds on PPP model, Alok Kansal, General Manager, Western Railway, called for using the customers CSR fund for development of Railway Goods sheds and other facilities.

While the WR has already crossed loading of 66 Million Tonnes in generating revenue of above Rs 8000 Crores through freight movement, it is expected to cross 82 Miiliion Tonne Loading to surpass revenue generation of Rs. 10,000 Crore in freight, he said, adding that the Western Railway was first to surpass 100-Crore mark in parcel revenue by generating Rs 145 crores in the month of November, 2020 itself.

Meanwhile, the Western Railway recently set up a “Centralised Video Surveillance System Control Room” at Churchgate in Mumbai as part of the Indian Railways efforts to enhance security at Railway stations, which are major hubs of transportation.

“The Railways is in the process of installing Internet Protocol (IP) based Video Surveillance System (VSS) at stations, including waiting halls, reservation counters, parking areas, main entrance/ exit, platforms, foot over bridges, booking offices etc. The Railway Board has approved works for provision of Video Surveillance System covering 983 stations over Indian Railways under Nirbhaya Fund,” Kansal said, adding that the new surveillance system will ensure safety of passengers especially women & children,on station premises through integration of camera feed of all stations at Security Control Room at Churchgate station, he said.

RailTel- a Miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, has been entrusted with the work of providing IP-based VSS with video analytics and facial recognition system. By December 3, 2020, around 250 railway stations across India were provided VSS, Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said, adding “We are working on providing similar centralized monitoring centres in other Zonal Railways also, besides work continuing on schedule in other stations as well.”