To ensure an 'uninterrupted' supply chain of goods and essential commodities in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, Indian Railways has decided to run special parcel trains to carry essential items in small packages or parcels during the complete lockdown period.
Railways claim that the parcel trains are expected to be of great utility to E-commerce companies.
Indian Railways has suspended operation of its passenger trains till April 14 and only freight trains are running 24/7 to ensure the supply of essential commodities like food grain, milk, fruits and vegetables, sugar, edible oil and petroleum products.
The special parcel trains will take 20 routes across the country, including New Delhi-Guwahati, New Delhi-Mumbai, New Delhi-Kalyan, New Delhi-Howrah, Chandigarh-Jaipur and Moga-Chhangsari.
Railway officials say that transportation of essential items like medical supplies, medical equipment and food is important during the lockdown.
"In order to meet this vital need, Indian Railways has made railway parcel vans available for quick mass transportation across the nation for E-commerce entities and others, including state governments,” a Railways official said.
It may be noted that home ministry has already removed the restrictions on movement of goods and commodities in the country during lockdown.
Indian Railways is already transporting essential commodities to different parts of the country using 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 and fruits, there are various items that need to be delivered in comparatively smaller quantities.
"After flights, Railways remain the fastest mode of inter-state transportation for such goods," he said.
Different zones of Indian Railways are working out their own plans for running these parcel trains. They are reaching out to prospective clients through various modes of communication, including advertisements. Industrial houses, companies, or any interested groups, organisations, individuals may avail of these services.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways has decided to provide cooked food with paper plates to needy people from 13 IRCTC base kitchens.
Besides the Railways, air services are also being used to ferry essential commodities during lockdown. While national carrier Air India is operating all its cargo planes, SpiceJet has also offered the same.
SpiceXpress, its dedicated cargo arm, has been doing doorstep deliveries of essential supplies, medicines and medical equipment in Bengaluru, Patna, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Vadodara, Kochi, Guwahati, Jammu and Lucknow, among other cities.
According to a statement by the airline, it has helped transport several emergency consignments, including IR thermometers, required to detect COVID-19, to Kolkata from Hong Kong and will be operating more flights this week.
Apart from several states, the airline said it has also operated special cargo flights to Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and other countries to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables, thus helping the farmers here.
SpiceJet is also operating dedicated freighter services from Chennai and Vishakhapatnam to Surat and Kolkata to help shrimp farmers. Till now, shrimp hatcheries faced problems in transporting seeds in the absence of dedicated flights, leading to a high mortality rate of shrimp seeds, which, in turn, led to heavy losses.
However, today, SpiceJet operated a special flight from Delhi to Jodhpur for 136 Indian nationals evacuated from COVID-19-hit Iran, who have been taken to a government quarantine facility in the city.