The Indian Railways is offering trains for the movement of essential commodities and other goods, and has asked local industries, e-commerce companies, interested groups, organizations, individuals and prospective loaders to contact railway officials at the zonal level to move goods.
Passenger trains have been halted but goods services continue. The Railways has even put up a table and the list of trains so that companies can approach them. “Any commodity can be booked in any quantity 'from' or 'to' any of these stations. All efforts are made to move the commodities in an efficient manner for timely delivery of stock,” the ministry said.
The Railways said it is already transporting essential commodities to different parts of the country through freight trains. “While these freight operations of Railways are meeting the needs of bulk transportation of essential goods like foodgrains, edible oil, salt, sugar, coal, cement, milk, vegetables & fruits etc, parcel trains are transporting various items that need to be delivered in comparatively smaller quantities.”
This comes after Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal held a video interaction with stakeholders from e-commerce and logistics industry regarding issues they were facing due to the lockdown on March 25.
"We are committed to ensuring that essential goods reach the people in the most convenient and safest manner,” he tweeted.
The meet was attended by representatives from Snapdeal, Shopclues, Flipkart and others.
Earlier, the Centre set up a control room to monitor the status of transportation along with delivery of goods, manufacturing and essential commodities to the public.
The facility will also monitor the difficulties being faced by various stakeholders during the lockdown period.
"In the event of any manufacturing, transporter, distributor, wholesaler or e-commerce companies facing ground level difficulties in transport and distribution of goods or mobilization of resources, the same may be informed to this Department...," the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had said in a statement.
With IANS inputs