June 20, 2020
Indian Railways, which is and has the largest passenger and cargo transportation system in the country has been actively participating to supply the food essential during the time of COVID.
Northern Railways has moved a total of 2,218 boggies or containers carrying about 62.47 lakh tons of wheat and rice to 18 states which suffered shortage of the food grains during the period of lockdown. Through the Public Distribution System (PDS) the food grains reached the ration shops all across India in time.
Indian Railways, which is and has the largest passenger and cargo transportation system in the country has been actively participating to supply the food essential during the time of COVID. With lockdown came into effect in India, all passenger and goods train operations were halted from midnight of March 22. Over 12,000 mail express, premium and suburban trains stopped running on the rail network bringing the whole country to a screeching stop.
The pandemic crisis has never been encountered in last 167 years of Indian Railways. However, Goods trains continued their run unabated to feed its teeming millions.
Rajiv Chaudhry, GM, Northern & North Central Railways shared the information that the task given to Northern Railway was to maintain a steady and continuous supply chain to feed 80 crores NFSA beneficiaries through the continuous evacuation of food grain from the granaries of Punjab and Haryana, which has been successfully met.
The supply chain had its own challenges which was tougher than thought. It was stiffer because of demanding working conditions due to the spread of pandemic and consequent lockdown. The availability of wagons, timely dispatch of food grain rakes, arranging staff and keeping them motivated to perform through tough times was an uphill task for all the division involved.
After further extension of lockdown, the Government announcement to provide an extra 5 kg food grain per person to NFSA beneficiaries. To meet the said demand, deficient states were permitted to lift 3 month’s stock from FCI on credit. There was an immense pressure on the railways to provide with higher evacuation of food grains.
This resulted in a sudden increase in loading requirement from average 15 to almost 3.6 times more rakes in a day on Northern Railways. An all-time high record of single day loading of 54 rakes was achieved in April 2020.
Since freight movement in covered rakes was being discouraged, managing the adequate supply of empty rakes from across the country and moving them to Punjab and Haryana for loading was a laborious task. To meet the constant demand, the flow of covered rakes running in other regions of the country were diverted to northern states.
Meticulous planned beforehand was done with Food Corporation of India (FCI) for arranging destinations as per the requirement of states. For loading and off-loading, a constant coordination for terminal release and labour availability with the local administration and at apex level with MHA was efficiently being done by Northern Railways.
More than 47.06 lakh tons of Rice and 15.4 lakh tons of wheat were sent to the receiving states from Punjab and Haryana. This is 206 per cent higher than the loading of food grains done over NR in the same period last year.
The General Manager also added that special long-distance goods with proper schedules for cargo and goods express trains shall continue to run from different regions of North India to maintain the supply of food grains, essential commodities and food processing equipment reaching in every remote place of the country.