(Image source from: blog.railmitra.com)
Kisan express will run exclusively to ferry the farmers’ products and supplies which will the first of its kind.
In the budget which was presented earlier this year, the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has made an announcement that an exclusive Kisan rail will be started in Karnataka which will be the first one in the southern state.
The southwestern railways has also recently announced that a kisan express will start from Karnataka.
Through this rail, the Indian Railways hopes to build a seamless national cold supply chain for ferrying the perishables including milk, meat and fish.
The railways is planning to do this project through the PPP arrangements.
Each of these Kisan express trains will ferry various products of the farmers to different places across the country. The first such kisan train will be started in Karnataka and will be running from KSR Bengaluru to H. Nizamuddin.
The train is expected to pass through Mysuru, Hubli and Pune which will help the farmers along the route to load up their products in the train to sell at other parts of the country at cheap prices.
The scheduled departure of this special Kisan express is at 16 45 hours on Saturday and is expected to reach H Nizamuddin station in Delhi at 23 45 hours on Monday.
The kisan rail will do five trips from Bengaluru. The services will begin from September 19 this year and would concluded on October 17 this year.
The train is scheduled to have multiple stops which include Mysuru, Hassan, Arsikere, Hubli Londa, Devanagari, Baelagavi, Miraj, Pune, Manmad, Bhusaval, Itarsi, Bhopal, Jhansi, Agra containment and Mathura. The return train will also travel along the same routes in the reverse order.
However, no passenger will be allowed to board the train. It will be somewhat interesting to see how the farmer community will utilize this special service launched by the Indian railways.
It is expected that the move will be helpful for many farmers across India to generate a steady income if this service will be utilized appropriately.
The Kisan express rail is expected to make the process of moving the production of the farmers much cheaper than any other mode of transport which was opted earlier.
This train will help in bringing perishable products like vegetables and fruits in just a short span of time. The train will also have frozen containers to build a seamless supply chain for the transport of meat, milk and fish.
The Kisan express scheme is among the first ones to realising the goal of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022.
The Indian Railways has earlier run the special trains like Banana specials but this will be the first multi commodity train.
By Gayatri Yellayi
