Indian Railways'' new initiatives in retail, freight information system

New Delhi: The Railways (IR) may put 600 more stations under the implementation of the freight operating information system (FOIS) in the next fiscal from the current level of over 500.

The system enables freight customers to obtain information regarding the status of their consignments in transit on a real-time basis.

Currently, only those locations are connected to the system, which handle over ten rakes per month. The proposal is to connect other locations which handle over five rakes per month with the system, according to official sources.

The current system has two modules — the rake management system for handling trains and terminal management system pertaining to the commercial transactions at loading and unloading stations.

The operating system enables monitoring all freight trains indicating their position on the Web and their expected time of arrival at the destination.

It also helps generate reports that show commodity-wise flow of freight trains for customers such as power houses, refineries, fertilisers and cement plants, steel depots and public freight terminals enabling the recipients of consignments to have accurate information on cargo arrivals, giving them adequate time to complete preparatory arrangement to handle the cargo.

Another initiative pertains to the phenomenal surplus real estate with the railways. IR will soon enter into partnerships with big retailers and is preparing a draft policy outlining the modalities of partnership.

The retailers under consideration include the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL), Kishore Biyani's Future Group, Sunil Mittal's Bharti, Tatas and Adanis with whom IR wants to set up agri-retail hubs like cold storage houses, multi-purpose warehouses on surplus land land in cities and villages.

IR's top management will hold meetings on 15 on January with private developers who have submitted their expression of interests for the second round of container train allotment.

RIL, Kribcho and Cargill have bid for the second round of the container business. The Railways hope to earn at least Rs1,500 crore in the second round as licence fees, as compared to the first round that netted IR just Rs540 crore through 14 private operators. This time, IR expects a turnout of at least 30 participants.