Central Railway, one of the zones of Indian Railways, has asked for freight assessment in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Solapur and Bhusawal divisions (all based in Maharashtra, essentially, though Solapur has a little area in northern Karnataka and Bhusawal a small part of southern Madhya Pradesh). This requires some leg work, in meeting potential shippers of goods (both agricultural commodities and manufactured goods) wherever there is some reasonable volume and potential movement by rail to some parts of the country - 500 km plus would be good, although there are examples for shorter distances as well. These movements would currently be happening largely by road and this will continue, but there seems to be potential to move some fraction of it by rail. This needs several things to happen:
* Loading facilities at this end for at least a few wagons worth of a consignment bound for some one region or location. A wagon can carry anything from 20 Tons to 50 odd tons, depending on the volume and bulk of the commodity.
* Unloading facilities at the other end (this is not something we would have a lot of control on, but there are agencies that do this for many shippers).
* First mile connectivity by road to access the loading point.
* Last mile connectivity at the other end.
The per ton-kilometer cost by rail is often quite competitive, and is not really the deciding factor as to why shippers choose one or other mode. The raw transit time of the rail part is also quite acceptable, noting that it is not point to point from the shipper's point of view.
There are a number of other factors such as claims and dispute settlement, insurance, ease of tracking shipments and regularity of rail movements.
So one would have to talk to shippers, and also freight consolidators and assess this potential and in a few cases, try to identify the facility bottlenecks of what needs to be done at the railway end to move these commodities by rail. If anyone is inclined to participate in this kind of work, please send email. I would initiate an initial visit with the person to these locations (for example, Bhusawal division has industrial clusters in Nashik and other areas, and a number of loading points in northern Maharashtra for bananas, onions and many other agri products) and then the person could spend one or two more days in talking to people from those regions.
The railways have promised to provide initial contacts and we do have our own sources to add to this. It would also involve visiting the relevant railway facilities (sidings where freight is loaded) and assess what needs to be done to meet the real needs of shippers (number of lines available, road approach, mechanical or manual loading arrangements, round the clock access to these facilities and so on).
The activity is to be done in November, after end sems, and in December. Travel and stay costs will be covered, as also some honorarium for participating.