By Dominick Rodrigues
Mumbai : The Central Railway’s vehicular transportation movement has begun to pay off in a big way for protection of the environment while also generating increased revenue.
The Central Railway loaded 32 rakes of Automobiles during the month of February 2021 — as against 12 rakes loaded during corresponding month of last year i.e. February 2020 — showing an increase of 166%. During the current financial year also i.e. from April 2020 to February 2021, the Automobile loading registered 246 rakes as against 118 rakes loaded during corresponding period of last year i.e. April-2019 to February 2020.
The loading during the current year shows an increase of 146% over last year. The dispatches of automobiles were made to various parts of the country and even exported to Bangladesh. This move also saves precious fuel besides reducing vehicular carbon footprint.
The Central Railway has set-up Business Development Units (BDUs) at Zonal and Divisional level, which aggressively market new proposals and flexible schemes with local industries and aggregate their demands.
These initiatives featured one-to-one meetings conducted with major automobile industries including M/s Mahindra & Mahindra, M/s Tata Motors, M/s Maruti Udyog etc. for transportation of cars, pick-up vans, tractors, jeeps etc.
As a result, the automobile industry has evinced greater interest in vehicular transportation by Rail, which is evident in the loading figures of automobiles during the current financial year. The loading facilities for transportation of automobiles have been set up at Kalamboli on Mumbai Division, Nashik Road on Bhusaval Division, Chinchwad station on Pune Division, Bale station on Solapur Division and Ajni station on Nagpur Division.
An interaction of BDUs with manufacturers of automobiles, drew interesting suggestions – following which the Parel workshop of Central Railway developed a prototype coach for carrying automobiles, easier loading of automobiles and increased speed potential.
