India’s First ‘Kisan Special Parcel Train’ Flagged Off From Maharashtra To Bihar

DEVLALI (Maharashtra): Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar today flagged off the country’s first Kisan Special Parcel Train or Kisan Rail through video link. The train will run on a weekly basis with an initial composition of 10 +1 VPs.

किसान हित में महाराष्ट्र के देवलाली से बिहार के दानापुर के बीच आज देश की पहली #KisanRail का शुभारंभ किया गया।

यह ट्रेन दूध, फल, सब्जी जैसी जल्दी खराब हो जाने वाली चीजों को बाजार तक जल्दी पहुंचाने के साथ ही नैशनल कोल्ड सप्लाई चेन को बनाने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभायेगी। pic.twitter.com/AgCivF3EBQ

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 7, 2020

The first train will transport material between Maharashtra’s Devlali and Bihar’s Danapur Railway station. The train will cover a distance of one thousand 519 kilometres in around 32 hours. The train will reach Danapur at 18:45 hrs. tomorrow covering the journey of 1519 km in 31:45 hrs.

The Kisan Rail will carry fruits and vegetables and will make stoppages at several stations and pick-up and deliver them.

It will halt at Nasik Road, Manmad, Jalgaon, Bhusaval, Burhanpur, Khandwa, Itarsi, Jabalpur, Satna, Katni, Manikpur, Prayagraj Chheoki, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Nagar and Buxar.

Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said, Kisan Rail, will prove to be a milestone and will bring prosperity to farmers.

He said, for transportation of Agri Products, Kisan Rail was announced in the Budget. He said, due to the Corona pandemic, all development works were stopped but due to efforts of hardworking farmers agriculture was not affected in the country.

Thanking the Railway Ministry, Mr Tomar said, there was no crisis of foodgrains during this covid pandemic as 4 thousand 6 hundred 10 trains transported foodgrains in 96 routes.

Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal said that Kisan Rail will help farmers become Atma Nirbhar self-dependent and bring prosperity to their lives. He said that on this day in 1853 first train ran between Boribunder to Thane and in 2020 it is again making history with Kisan Rain.

The Minister said that during the Covid-19 crisis, foodgrain supply by Railways has been doubled.

With the launch of Kisan Rail, the Railways aims to help in double farmers’ income.

The Railway Ministry said that this will help in bringing perishable agricultural products like vegetables, fruits to the market in a short period of time.

The Kisan Rail train with frozen containers is expected to build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, inclusive of fish, meat and milk.

Indian Railways have earlier run single commodity special trains like Banana Specials etc.

But this will be the first-ever multi-commodity trains and will carry fruits like Pomegranate, Banana, Grapes etc and vegetables like Capsicum, Cauliflower, Drumsticks, Cabbage, Onion, Chillies etc.

Aggressive marketing is being done with local farmers, loaders, APMC and individuals. Demand is being aggregated. It is expected that the train will be patronised well and will be a great help to the farmers, as the freight of this train will be charged as per parcel tariff of a normal train (P Scale).

from League of India