The onset of the novel coronavirus leading to the nationwide lockdown from March led to an acute shortage of food across the nation. To ensure that the food grains reach the ration shops across India on time, Northern Railways moved a total of 2,218 rakes carrying about 62.47 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice to 18 deficient states during the period between April 1 to June 8.
Amid the ongoing pandemic, the Indian Railways has been an active participant in the country’s fight against the coronavirus. With lockdown coming into effect on March 22, all passenger train operations were stopped, though goods trains continued their run unabated.
The task appointed to Northern Railway was to maintain a steady supply chain to feed 80 crores National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries through the continuous evacuation of food grain from the granaries of Punjab and Haryana.
The availability of wagons, timely dispatch of food grain stocks, arranging staff, and keeping them motivated to perform in the tough conditions was an arduous task for the Divisions involved.
As the lockdown was extended, the Government announced to provide an additional 5 kg food grain per person to NFSA beneficiaries. To meet the demand deficient states were permitted to lift three months’ stock from Food Corporation of India on credit. This built up more pressure on the Railways to provide for the enhanced evacuation. This resulted in a sudden increase in loading requirement from average 15 to almost 3.6 times more rakes in a day over Northern Railways.
To meet the demand, the flow of covered rakes running in other regions of India were diverted towards North. As a result, more than 47.06 LT of Rice and 15.4 LT of wheat were sent to the receiving states from Punjab and Haryana.
Due to this, the zonal Railway achieved the distinction of carrying out almost 50 per cent of the total loading of food grain by Railways in the country during the lockdown period.
The railway authorities also assured those special long-distance goods and timetabled Parcel Cargo express trains will continue to run from different regions of North India to maintain the supply of food grains, items of daily use, essential medicines, and equipment all across India reaching out to the most remote places.
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