Announced in Union Budget 2020, Kisan Rail to begin transport services from Friday

New Delhi: The Centre will introduce its pilot Kisan Rail, a special parcel train for carrying perishable commodities, announced as part of the budget this year, on Friday. The Ministry of Railways is introducing the train from Devlali in Maharashtra to Danapur in Bihar on 7th August on a weekly basis, a government statement issued on Thursday said.

The train will be flagged off via video conferencing by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Rural Development and Panchyati Raj,Narendra Singh Tomar and Minister of Railways and Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal. On February 1st this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman in her budget announcement said that the Indian Railways will run Kisan Rail for transportation of perishable commodities, through the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. Demand is being aggregated and it is expected that the train will be patronised well and will provide help to the farmers who are struggling to sell their produce in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, the railway ministry said.

Kisan Rail will help in bringing perishable agricultural products like vegetables, fruits to the market in a short period of time, and the train with frozen containers is expected to build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, inclusive of fish, meat and milk, the ministry said. Indian Railways have earlier run single commodity special trains like Banana Specials, among others, but this will be the first ever multi commodity train.