Amid COVID19 pandemic and subsequent announcement of lockdown to arrest the spread of the corona virus all regular passenger train services have been cancelled till further advice. The individuals and other stake holders find it difficult to transport the essential commodities during this lockdown to maintain the supply chain. In this situation of lockdown, Indian Railways came forward to run parcel trains to maintain the supply chain of essential commodities.
Central Railway has dispatched 6,249 Tonnes essential commodities during this lockdown period from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Mumbai, Kalyan, Nagpur, Bhusaval, Solapur, Pune and Nashik to various destinations across the country.
During the lockdown period, Central Railway has carried 2,373 Tonnes of Food items/Perishables, 2,928 Tonnes of hard parcels, 861 Tonnes of Medicines/ Pharma products, 58 Tonnes of Postal bags and 29 Tonnes of E-commerce products by these parcel trains.
Similarly, Central Railway has carried medicines, postal bag, vegetable, food items, milk products and hard parcel as inward traffic from various stations to stations on Central Railway viz. Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Akola, Nagpur, Kalaburagi, Manmad, Bhusaval, CSMT etc.
Apart from running these parcel trains, Central Railway has also joined hands with Maharashtra Postal Circle to synergies the capabilities of India Post and Indian Railways within Maharashtra state by offering door to door India Post Railway Service. To begin with, this service will be available from and between Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur stations and further will be extended to other stations later.
Aa a novel initiative Central Railway has already introduced online payment for parcel booking on Mumbai Division of Central Railway to facilitate the stake holders the much-needed social distancing and enables easy payment through Net Banking/RTGS/NEFT/IMPS/UPI from office/residence.