(a) whether the Government is putting emphasis on setting up railside warehouses;
(b) if so, the details in this regard;
(c) the details of the locations where cold storage is being set up on vacant land adjacent to cargo terminal with a view to achieving the said objective; and
(d) the amount of funds allocated/ utilized for the said purpose?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI RAJEN GOHAIN)
(a) to (d): With a view to meet the logistics requirements of its customers, Ministry of Railways has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), for development of Railside Warehouse Complexes (RWCs) at 22 strategic locations in addition to the pilot project at Whitefield, Bangalore. Subsequent to the formation of Central Railside Warehouse Company Limited (CRWC) as a subsidiary Company, a tripartite MoU has been executed for this objective along with development of temperature controlled storages at 10 locations.
So far, railside warehouses are operational at 18 locations and work is in progress for development of temperature controlled storage at Fathua, Bihar.
Also, a pilot project called “Kisan Vision Project”, was introduced for development of facilities for setting up cold storages and temperature-controlled perishable cargo centers as well as development of agri-retail outlets at six locations on Indian Railways by Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR), CWC and CRWC. Under this project, centres at Nasik (Maharashtra), New Azadpur (Delhi) and Ghazipur Ghat (Uttar Pradesh) are functional and Perishable Cargo Centre at Raja Talaab (Uttar Pradesh) has been approved.
Both the projects are being carried out on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
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