The Indian Railways begun an initiative named, Hungry for Cargo, once it realised that the passenger traffic will not generate good enough revenue during the COVID pandemic due to reduced number of services.
Consequently, it began to focus more on cargo traffic, apart from forming business development units at divisional levels, giving incentives to attract more cargo and reaching out to new customers dealing with agriculture goods and small businesses. Besides, it started to improve its own infrastructure.
It set its focus mainly on good sheds, which hitherto lacked proper approach roads, cover, platforms, illumination, boundary walls, greenery, sewerage, amenities for the labour like drinking water, rest rooms, etc.
Many of these got an uplift in the last couple of years with about ₹150 crore spent across the six divisions of the South Central Railway (SCR) where the cargo being loaded or unloaded included fertilizer, granite, foodgrain and the like. All these upgrades had already helped in bringing a total revenue ₹263 crore, informed senior officials during a recent interaction.
“Earlier, these goods sheds did not have proper approach roads and were poorly lit with little or no facilities to the labour. All these are being addressed now. It is helping quicker turnaround of the wagons as good vehicles can speedily move in and out, while cargo loading and unloading became quicker because of raised platforms. New freight customers too were attracted to bring their goods,” they said.
Some of the goods sheds which already got a facelift are those at at Peddapalli - with ₹2.78 crore expenditure, Uppal - ₹ 1.80crore, Sultanabad - ₹35 lakh, Karimnagar - ₹1.20 crore, Gangadhara - ₹32 lakh, Jagityal - ₹92 lakh, and so on. Model goodsheds were also built at Khammam, Zaheerabad and Ugir on the Vikarabad-Parli Vaijnath. stations.
Other stations which got an upgrade in amenities to facilitate more cargo are: Kurnool - with ₹30 lakh, Mahabubnagar - ₹30 lakh, Dichpalli, Bodhan, Medak & Gajwal - ₹7.5 crore, Miryalguda - ₹2.47 crore, Dwarapudi - ₹2.4 crore, and Eluru - ₹1.64 crore. More such works are underway at Palakollu, Akividu, Bhimavaram, Gudivada and others, informed senior officials.
