In the wake of the complete lockdown imposed on passenger carrying train movements to contain the spread of Covid-19, South Central Railway has started running Special Parcel Express to ensure uninterrupted supply of essential commodities to other parts of the country. As part of this, a Special Parcel Express was started on 2ndApril, 2020from Secunderabad to Howrah with Enroute stoppages at Kazipet, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry and Anakapalli over SCR jurisdiction.
In the prevailing emergent conditions, the Railway Officers & staff have taken special interest to ensure that supply of essential commodities is not hampered. The Officers and Staff from Commercial and Operating played a vital role and coordinated with different Cargo aggregators, merchants, major material distributors and stakeholders for mobilization of essential commodities for offering loading. Further, they also coordinated with the local State government and Police authorities for smooth and hassle free movement of commodities.
Due to the concerted efforts of all these Railway personnel, the parcel special was successfully dispatched from Secunderabad at 22.00 hrs on 2nd April, 2020 with a composition of5 VPs (Parcel vans) containing a total of 3,005 packages weighing 91.7 tonnes. The items carried in the special train include Cartoon boxes containing Eggs, General goods like Chocolates, Biscuits, Garments, Medicines, Medicinal equipment, Machinery parts etc loaded from Hyderabad and Secunderabad. In addition, Musk Melons, Mangoes, Iced fish boxes have been loaded from Guntakal, Nandyal, Vijayawada and Rajahmundry, while Ghee tins from Anakapalle and Lemon Gunny bags from Vijayawada have been loaded.
Care was also taken to ensure that the parcel vans are properly sanitized before commencement of loading. Further, during the loading process, necessary precautionary measures were also adopted in terms of proper physical distancing by the staff deployed in loading of the commodities into parcel vans.
Significantly, giving necessary importance to the movement of the Parcel express, the special train was moved with constant monitoring resulting in the special train moving with an overall average speed of 55 kmph over SCR jurisdiction, as against the average speed of parcel cargo express with 30 kms per hour.
Shri Gajanan Mallya has complimented all the officers and staff who have involved in operating this special train, which is need of the hour for the country. He has appreciated the efforts of SCR family in rising to the occasion and applauded the commitment and devotion to the duty by staff and officers. In this context, he has also advised to make efforts to run more number of parcel specials during the current situation to ensure that essential products are reached to the needy sections of the society.
