South Central Railway and Container Corporation of India are now offering a door-to-door shipping service to transport containerized cement by rail from Jaggayyapet to Shalimar in West Bengal. The initiative has been launched to ship cement from the KCP Cement plant near Jaggayyapet.
This is the first such service on Indian Railways. The first rake was flagged off today from Jaggayyapet station to Shalimar by A.K. Gupta, Divisional Railway Manager, Secunderabad.
CONCOR will pick up cement containers directly from the factory and transport them to the railway station by road. It will then deliver the goods to the bulk consumer at the destination. The PSU decided to start this operation from Jaggayyapet station and requested the Secunderabad division of South Central Railway on 4th March 2021 for their assistance.
The division then took up all activities like road levelling, clearing of PWAY material, vehicle crossing check rails, tower lighting for night operations and converting 3rd loop line to top wiring line within a short span of 15 days with local resources and no additional cost. As a result, the inaugural rake could be flagged off today, earning SCR freight revenues of Rs. 20 lakh.
Benefits of this initiative.
- Avoidance of multiple handling of the commodities: be it from the factory to railways or from railways to goods shed/warehouse and then again to the dealers and ultimately to the customers.
- One-stop transport solution for the supplier and their customer.
- Reduction of any en route pilferages/damages.
- The establishment of a container handling terminal at a place like Jaggayyapet will give a fillip to the industry around, especially the cement industry with no rail connectivity enabling them to avail the benefits of long lead rail transportation.