Back, front-end support to propel Kisan Rail project, say experts

This is Centre's second attempt to run special trains for agri goods

As the central government looks to expand runs of its much-talked-about Kisan Rail — started a few months back for transporting agricultural commodities —it could draw lessons from a similar experiment in transporting farm goods launched a few years ago.

Experts say though the project looks promising on paper and the initial trips have been fairly successful, just running wagon and coaches filled with fruits and vegetables won’t be enough. 

According to them, the transportation has to be supplemented with proper back-end and front-end support. This support has to be in the form of sorting and grading facility, pack-houses, efficient distribution through refer vans and other channels at the destination station. 

All these will ensure that goods quickly reach the consumers with minimal damage. Or else, the project may achieve limited success. The total logistical cost for a transporter, which includes handling cost from farm to warehouses, then to the rail heads and to the final destination, also needs to be competitive compared to other modes of transport. This will make Kisan Rail successful and worthwhile, they said.

In the recent past, Kisan Rail has been the second attempt by the Centre to run specially dedicated trains for carrying agriculture goods, mainly perishable items. A few years back, an almost similar experiment was launched by the agriculture ministry to run fully-loaded refrigerated containers to transport perishables, protein and milk, among others, from one part of the country to another, with a private partner.

Called, the ‘Horti Trains’ (short-form for Horticulture Trains), officials who were part of the project that was started in 2012-13 on an experimental basis, say that the idea was to involve private logistics players called Private Container Train Operators (PCTOs) in the running of these trains.

These operators were required to pay an upfront licence fee and rent to run trains. IIT-Kharagpur was asked to design the refrigerated containers for the special trains. However, one basic flaw which several experts pointed out was that the locomotive for such trains was to be provided by the Indian Railways along with the transportation schedule. This sometimes lead to delay in execution. During the planning stage, a dispute also arose as to whether these trains could pick up and drop containers on-route or all containers needed to be fully loaded at their station of origin and emptied at the destination.

“Imagine a train having almost 90 containers filled with bananas reaching a city like Delhi suddenly. The markets will obviously crash, leading to losses for everyone in the value chain,” Pawanexh Kohli, former chief executive and advisor to India’s National Centre for Cold-chain Development (NCCD), said.

According to some studies, in Delhi 11,600 tonnes of banana, 18,600 tonnes of tomato, 23,500 tonnes of onion and 54,000 tonnes of potato are consumed every month.  None of them are produced in the capital and have to be transported from neighbouring or distant places.

Kohli said several containers ran empty while rent for the entire rake had to be paid. This was of no value either to the shipper or the final buyer of the products. Finally, after several twists and turns, the project was abandoned in 2016. 

The newly-launched Kisan Rail is structurally and fundamental different from the Horti Trains.

The Kisan trains are run and operated by the Indian Railways and secondly, unlike private refrigerated containers, Kisan Rail, is meant to transport a variety of fruits and vegetables with a 50 per cent subsidy. This is provided by the ministry of food processing. 

At present, three Kisan rails have started on a weekly basis while a fourth one from Nagpur and Warud Orange City (Maharashtra) to Adarsh Nagar, Delhi, is being planned.  

“The Kisan Rail is an excellent initiative for small farmers who produce vegetables or other perishable goods with limited shelf life. When an opportunity like this is presented to the small holders, they can get easy access to moving their agriculture produce from villages to metro cities. They will surely benefit from it,” said Sanjay Borkar, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of FarmERP, a smart agriculture management ERP software platform.

The railways has always been transporting a variety of food items, but its share in transportation of perishables such as fruits and vegetables is among the lowest in all commodities.

Road is the preferred mode for shippers and aggregators of fruits and vegetables. A big reason for this is the time taken to move goods, which the Kisan Rail seeks to address. According to a study done by the erstwhile Planning Commission on the transportation systems in the country, less than 3 per cent of fruits and vegetables that move in the country in a given period is through railways while the remaining 97 per cent is through road.

For non-perishable food items such as sugar, wheat and rice, the share of Railways according to the study was at 30 per cent for wheat, 32 per cent for rice and 24 per cent for sugar and khandsari.

“Farmers’ produce largely travels through road as it is cost-effective. Therefore, factors such as handling cost will need to be looked at for Kisan Rail. It also needs to be seen whether the return cargoes are coming booked or not. All these need to be carefully analysed before arriving at any conclusion,” said Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, director, CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory.