The Southern Railway is to focus the SME segment in Kerala in a big way to facilitate bulk movement of cargo through its special train - Kairali Queen - initiated by the Railways for goods movement in the State, Mr Rajesh Agarwal, Divisional Manager, SR, has said.

Speaking at an interactive meeting organised by the Kerala Chamber of Commerce and Industry here, Mr Agarwal said that the special train will enable SME's to get the benefit of rake movement, as the train Kairali Queen is aimed at encouraging SME entrepreneurs in agro based products/industry of Kerala. It is an offer by the Railways to facilitate bulk movement of products to long destinations.

However, Mr Agarwal pointed out that the huge potential of the Indian Railways is unutilised in the State. By bringing SMEs under the railway umbrella, he said the trade and industry will prosper in the State.

Today, bulk movement is through roads, he said and called upon businessmen, freight forwarders to take the initiative to shift the cargo movement through rail.

The mobilisation of goods from Kochi port to various destinations through rail transit will be much cheaper and effective than road transport. There are plans to promote goods transport and priority would be given to move containers from Vallarpadam terminal, he said.

He said the idea is to aggregate one rake in (42 or at least 30-40 wagons) in one day. Simultaneous loading can be done on the same day to same destinations at 3-4 locations.

The train will ply two days in a month each for Delhi, Gujarat, Kanpur, Mumbai, Kolkata etc.

Loading can be done from 4 different places, any type of commodity, any number of wagons, to a single destination. There are four loading points in the State which comprises Angamali Goods Shed, Willingdon Island, Changanassery or Alappuzha Goods shed and Kollam or Kayamkulam goods shed.

The advantages over road transit were that the rail can move 50-60 tonnes a wagon with much cheaper freight and smaller and assured transit time.

There will be no issues of check posts, Octroi etc. and not affected by day/night/weather/agitation. The location of the train is available with the Goods Shed Supervisor through Railways FOIS network.

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