Growel Feeds Private Limited, based at Chevuru village in Krishna district, successfully loaded fish feed in a mini BCN rake of 21 wagons and despatched it from Gudivada to Changsari in Assam on April 7. It is the first-ever rake of floating fish feed transported from Vijayawada division to another State.
A total of 1,338 tonnes of fish packed in standard dimension bags were loaded in 21 covered wagons. The consignment fetched ₹29.86 lakh for the railway division.
According to an official release, fish feed is traditionally transported to the northeastern States by road at an approximate cost of ₹7,500 per tonne over a distance of 2,138 km. At ₹2,125 per tonne, the cost in rail transit is 74% less than that incurred by road transport.
Earlier, mini rakes (21 wagons) were permitted only up to a distance of 1,500 km between different zones. The Railway Board relaxed the rules recently and is now permitting inter-zonal transport of mini rakes beyond 2,000 km till June 31, 2021 to expand its freight basket.
Divisional Railway Manager P. Srinivas complimented senior divisional commercial manager P. Bhaskar Reddy, senior commercial inspector (Gudivada) V. Bhagavan Naik and their team for initiating this new stream of traffic for the railways.