Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the government of India is set to introduce a daily time-tabled parcel, which will connect Kashmir and Delhi on Thursday.
In a post on X, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that these parcel services will start from the Badgam area of Kashmir Valley to Adarsh Nagar in Delhi.
The railway minister added that the services will become effective from September 13 this year. According to Vaishnaw, he emphasises that these services will empower Kashmir’s apple farmers.
He further added that the services of loading two parcel vans carrying apples from Badgam to Delhi are now starting from today.
Meanwhile, to increase the share of railways in the courier business and provide an efficient, reliable and economical option to the customers, the Railway Board approved the services of Joint Parcel Product-Rapid Cargo (JPP-RCS) train facilities, for the Jammu Division in Northern Railway on August 20th, this year.
According to the Senior Commercial Divisional Manager of Jammu Division, Uchit Singhal, the first service of this parcel will depart from Adarsh Nagar, Delhi, to Budgam at 12.10 pm on 13th september. It will depart from Budgam for Delhi at 06:15 am on 15th September. The main objective of running the train is to provide benefits to the traders of Kashmir and ensure that their goods reach every corner of the country, which mainly includes items like apples, saffron, walnuts, pashmina shawls, carpets and Kashmiri handicrafts. This train is set to reach Delhi in about 23 hours, which is considered less time than the road trip from Budgam.
Throwing light on the decision to resume these services, Divisional Railway Manager Vivek Kumar said that the decision to resume this parcel train service has been taken due to bad weather. Due to heavy rains affecting road traffic, there have been numerous problems transporting apples and other fruits to other states and villages across the country. To address this issue, the railways decided to start a parcel train.
Talking about the facilities, the Northern Railway said that this parcel train will have an SLR, which will be accompanied by eight parcels. To facilitate the business class, the facility of loading and unloading of goods will be provided at Bari Bhrahana station.
As per the Divisional Railway Manager of the Jammu division, the aim of the Joint Parcel Product-Rapid Cargo Service (JPP-RCS) is to promote freight transportation through railways. Additionally, it serves as a virtual aggregation platform that will help enhance the participation of railways in the private sector. This cargo train is being operated for the first time in the Jammu division.
