New Delhi (NVI): Indian Railways has taken an ambitious step towards achieving ‘Net Zero’ carbon emission mass transportation network by 2030 by transporting automobiles to parts in the country, thereby saving precious fuel and reducing carbon footprint.
As a part of this mission, Central Railway is in coordination with automobile companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, the Railways said in a statement.
Business Development Units (BDU) formed to increase the rail share in the goods and parcel sector have mapped the data of inward and outward material both industry and sector wise.
“One to one meeting conducted with M/s Mahindra and Mahindra resulted in more loading of automobiles. They have also first and last mile connectivity for delivering the vehicles,” the Central Railways said in a statement.
This mode will also cut down the time taken to transport Mahindra’s newly built vehicles from its plants to dealers in various cities across the country.
Automobiles are transported in dedicated rakes and one such rake can carry 118 vehicles while a BCACBM rake, new high capacity Railway wagons, can carry approximately 300 vehicles, the Railways said.
At present, Railways uses New Modified Goods (NMG) rakes and privately owned BCACBM rakes for automobile transportation. Movement of these rakes are being monitored closely to reduce the turnaround time and subsequently making these rakes available for next loading has elicited customer satisfaction.
Maharashtra is a big automobile hub, where Mahindra, Tata, Ford, Piaggio, Bajaj etc are manufacturing vehicles near Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Aurangabad areas. There is a vast potential to carry automobiles manufactured in Maharashtra to different parts of the country.
BDU meetings with Tata Motors and other automobile companies have been held and the transportation is likely to heat the race. Maruti have also transported 1.78 lakh cars across the country by using freight trains in this financial year from its 5 loading terminals to 13 destination terminals including Nagpur and Mumbai, the Central Railways said in a release.
Central Railway has transported automobiles in 18 rakes in July 2020. It is also cost effective.
“Similarly, CR has transported agro based fertilizer (potash) manufactured from molasses alcohol waste for the first time from Daund. New traffic of wheat loading from Betul and Multai stations on Nagpur Division, maize from Khandwa and Paras; husk from Chalisgaon on Bhusaval Division has started. Other commodities targeted by the Central Railway are fly-ash, cotton, etc,” it said.
A quantum jump in onion loading including export to Bangladesh has also been achieved, the Railways added.
-ARK
