A year since the start of the lockdown on 23rd March 2020, Western Railway has transported 2.98 lakh tons of commodities through 1,008 parcel trains up to 22nd March 2021.
To help keep supply chains running, these parcel trains transported essentials such as medicine, fish, milk and agriculture produce, generating over 106 crores in revenue for the zone.
WR also operated 183 milk special trains, transporting 1.35 lakh tons of milk in this period. Similarly, 620 Covid-19 special parcel trains shipped more than 80 thousand tons of various essential commodities. In addition, 123 indented rakes carrying more than 56 thousand tons were also run.
82 Kisan Rails trains with 27 thousand tons of agricultural produce were also dispatched.
During the lockdown period from 22nd March 2020 till 22nd March, 2021 a total of 35,171 rakes of goods trains were loaded by WR to transport 77.85 million tons of commodities. 72,823 freight trains have been interchanged with other zonal railways, in which 36,469 trains were handed over and 36,354 trains taken over at different interchange points.
WR CPRO Sumit Thakur-says that the Business Development Units (BDUs) set up by Western Railway have helped attract new types of goods transportation by rail. As a result, onions, chemical dyes, textiles etc have been transported from Gujarat to Bangladesh by Indian Railways.