Hyderabad, May 24 (IANS): The 25th Kisan Rail from Lingampet Jagtiyal in Telangana left for New Delhi on Monday with 585 tonnes of mangos, as the Indian Railways, overcoming the challenges of the Covid pandemic, continued to provide support to the agricultural sector.
The Jagityal area in Telangana is well known for cultivation of export quality mangos. Till now, during the mango season, the traders, cargo aggregators and farmers were transporting these superior quality mangoes by road to different parts of the country, which is expensive, time taking and prone to relatively more enorute damages and losses, said South Central Railway (SCR).
Introduction of Kisan Rail concept by Indian Railways, along with 50 per cent tariff concession provided by the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries under the scheme "Operation Greens - TOP to Total" was extensively publicised by the newly-formed Business Development Unit (BDU) team of Secunderabad Division across all segments of freight customers including traders, cargo operators, bulk transporters and farmers in and around Jagityal region, it said.
The BDU also explained to the freight customers of this area about various schemes and concessions being offered by the Railways. All these factors provided a path for initiating mango loading by Rail from Jagityal area.
Within a short span of 42 days, the 25th Kisan Rail from Lingampet Jagityal could be achieved transporting around 13,590 tonnes of load and earning a revenue of Rs 5.50 crore, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kisan Rail rakes are proving to be game changers for boosting rural economy by providing faster and timely transportation of horticultural produce. These trains are immensely helping the farming sector of this area in finding new avenues for marketing their farming produce across the country. Further, it provides a smooth, hassle-free and economical transportation facility with least enroute damages to the farmers, traders and cargo operators.
Also, with the commodities being loaded in parcel vans, where the requirement is only 23 tonnes per van, this has helped the farmers and traders with small to medium quantities also to avail the facility.
SCR General Manager Gajanan Mallya has expressed his happiness on loading of 25th Kisan Rail from Lingampet Jagityal to New Delhi. He complimented the efforts of Secunderabad Division Team for operation of Kisan Rail loaded with mangos from Lingampet Jagityal to Adarsh Nagar, New Delhi.
He advised freight customers to utilise the Kisan Rail facility for transportation of their farming produces at concessional tariffs.