Jammu And Kashmir: Railways To Launch Parcel Service In Valley

Indian Railways has planned to launch a parcel service on the 136-km-long Banihal-Qazigund-Baramulla section in Jammu and Kashmir, to facilitate faster transportation of small goods in the valley.

There is a regular train service between Banihal and Jammu to Baramulla in Kashmir and the launch of the parcel service is expected to attract goods like electronics, medicines, and other finished cargo from the road sector to rail transport.

Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishanw is likely to launch the parcel service today (25 March).

In order to provide seamless movement of parcels, Indian Railways, and India Posts had in February launched the joint parcel service — Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service.

According to the Railways, Parcel Management System (PMS) will be extended to 523 locations across the country.

The railways parcel services are being geared towards providing transportation for small consignments over a vast network of stations across the country.

Small businesses and traders, especially in smaller cities and towns, have been using these services for transporting their merchandise from bigger cities and production centres to their business places in a fast, reliable and cheap manner.

The  parcel management system has been modernised with barcoding provided on each consignment, for tracking purposes.

The upgraded system offers status updates of packages through GPRS network transmission of data, from hand-held mobile devices through scanning of barcodes.

The computerisation of the parcel management system is being extended from 84 locations to an additional 143 locations in phase-II and 523 locations in phase–III with enhanced features.

General public also can utilise these services for transportation of household goods, furniture, two-wheelers etc.

The Railways maintain that the charges are based on weight and volume, and not on the type of commodity. A provision of 120 days advance booking of parcel space has been enabled in PMS.

SMS to customers (sender and receiver) at each stage from parcel booking, loading, unloading to delivery, on the registered mobile number is sent at the time of booking.

Since the booking of parcel/luggage is carried out at parcel offices at stations through computerized counters and automatic capturing of weight through electronic weighing of consignment, it benefits ordinary public and businesses alike.