‘Utterly butterly delighted': Amul tweets, railways responds in kind

Indian Railways, which extensively uses social media to interact with passengers or address their woes, on Monday took its Twitter activity a step further when it accepted a business proposal from dairy major Amul on the micro-blogging site.

Amul had reached out to Indian Railways on Twitter with a business proposition to use the railways' refrigerated parcel vans to transport Amul butter across India. The proposal was promptly accepted by the national transporter which used a popular tagline of the company in its response.

"@RailMinIndia, Amul is interested in using refrigerated parcel vans to transport Amul Butter across India. Request to please advise," the dairy major had tweeted to the Railways.

The rail ministry's handle @RailMinIndia responded: "IR will be utterly butterly delighted to get the taste of India to every Indian."

This could be the first time that state-owned transporter responded to a business proposal on the micro-blogging website.

The Indian Railways had introduced the refrigerated van service a few years ago to facilitate the transportation of perishable commodities such as fruits, vegetables, frozen meats / poultry and chocolates, but most of the vans were lying idle, according to a ministry official cited by media outlets including IndiaTV and Mint.

However, this service exists only on specific routes. "We would certainly like to capture this traffic. Let us see what can be done," the official added.

The senior divisional manager of the Ahmedabad Division will meet officials from Amul tomorrow to discuss this, the official said on Monday.

He said that the South Western Railway has some refrigerated vans which can be repaired and used by the Railways to assist Amul.