The Union railway ministry has called for expression of interest (EoI) for development of perishable cargo centres and cold chain transportation by train through public-private partnership (PPP).
With this, the ministry plans to have a wider role in logistics of perishable cargoes such as fruit, vegetable, dairy products and fish and meat, among others.
Interested parties can send the EoIs by September 30. Taking forward the Kisan Vision Project, announced by railway minister Mamata Banerjee in the 2009-10 budget, the railways intends to set up cold chain solution for perishable cargo.
As per the EoI document, the ministry has asked both, the interested parties and potential users, to assess feasibility of such centres between a pair stations.
“Ministry of railways invites EoI from the interested and potential users of the service to help assess the demand for such services and identify possible origin-destination pair of stations.
Subsequently, based on such information bids would be invited to execute the project on PPP mode,” said the ministry’s EoI document.
The railways will provide refrigerated parcel vans to the operator through open tender for three years or more. The operators will be responsible for arranging as well as loading and unloading the cargo. The railways will provide land to the operator at the originating and destination station subject to availability, to set up temperature controlled storage facility.
The operator will operate and maintain the temperature-controlled perishable cargo storage centres and facilitate collection, storage, aggregation and transportation of perishable cargo.
The scheme is open for logistics and transportation companies, cold chain operators, agri-retail chain operators, freight forwarders, corporate houses engaged in contract farming, food processing industries, agri-cooperative societies, state marketing federations, warehousing companies, among others.
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