Door-to-Door Delivery by Indian Railways: A ‘Joint Parcel Product’ (JPP) of India Post and the national transporter, Indian Railways is being developed. In this service, first-mile and last-mile connectivity will be provided by the Department of Posts, and the intermediate connectivity from station to station will be done through the Indian Railways. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, in a recent reply to a question in Lok Sabha, said that the Joint Parcel Product aims to target the business-to-business and business-to-customer markets by offering full parcel handling solution, i.e. picking up from the sender’s premises, booking and door-step delivery to the recipient. The JPP by the national transporter and India Post has commenced on a pilot project basis. The pilot project’s first service commenced on 31 March 2022 from the city of Surat in Gujarat to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the Railway Minister has also stated that on 15 December 2021, a new policy of ‘Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ has been introduced to boost investment from industry in the development of extra terminals for handling rail cargos. The locations for GCTs, according to Vaishnaw, are being identified and finalized on the basis of demand from the industry and the potential of Cargo Traffic. So far, a total of six GCTs have been commissioned already and around 74 more locations have been identified provisionally for the development of GCTs, the minister noted.
The state-wise details of the identified locations for GCTs are- Andhra Pradesh- 4, Assam- 2, Bihar- 8, Chhattisgarh- 1, Delhi- 1, Gujarat- 3, Haryana- 2, Jharkhand- 4, Karnataka- 3, Kerala- 1, Madhya Pradesh- 1, Maharashtra- 11, Odisha- 4, Punjab- 6, Tamil Nadu- 3, Telangana- 5, Uttar Pradesh- 10, Uttarakhand- 1 and West Bengal- 4. The government has targeted to set up as many as 100 GCTs within the next three financial years i.e. 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25.
