Indian Railways has come up with various measures and incentives, to help out freight/ parcel customers in this pandemic time and attract new customers. Waltair Division of East Coast Railway also adopted Time Tabled Parcel Express Trains apart from offering various incentives, as per guidelines defined by Railway Board, for maintaining uninterrupted supply of essential commodities to every nook and corner of the country during crisis.

As a part of commitment, under the guidance of Divisional Railway Manager, Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, Waltair Division has set up Business Development Unit (BDU) with primary focus towards bringing the Railways closer to industry and trade apart from increasing the Railways share in the transportation needs, including non-bulk goods traffic. Accordingly the Division has geared up to improve loading and unloading environment to tap the cargoes like vegetables, food grains, grocery items, building materials, automobiles etc by interacting with the cargo movers, freight customers and providing additional halt to parcel trains as per demand and feasibility. This received a good response from the business entities that resulted in enhancing the parcel movement.

With the setup of BDU the parcel cargo improved with transportation to the tune of 1030 Tonnes in August including 308.246 tonnes by Parcel special trains. In September till date the parcel transportation of 107.658 tonnes was achieved only through parcel specials. With the additional stoppage at Vizianagaram railway station to Bangalore-Howrah parcel special, 17.351 tonnes of parcel booking could be achieved in the last few weeks whereas 5.08 tonnes of parcel booked on 08.09.2020.

The booking of parcels can be done by consulting Station Superintendents/ Station Managers/ Commercial Supervisors at nearest stations where these parcel specials have stoppages. For any assistance or clarification one can visit the Divisional Office on working days. Booking of parcels has now become hassle free and Waltair Division has geared up to cater to the customers demand as per their need.