Since June 19, the South Western Railway has run three Kisan Rail services to transport mangoes from Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts to Delhi. This was a welcome relief to farmers and traders who were struggling to send their stocks to markets because of limited or slow transport options.
Two trains ferried 250 tonnes of mangoes each, mostly Benisha and Bengaloora Thotapuri varieties, and the third 240 tons from Chintamani in Chikkaballapur to Adarsh Nagar in Delhi.
One grower said: "Apart from lower transportation cost, the other advantage is that the quality of the fruit would still be good at the destination as it takes only 38 to 40 hours by train to reach Delhi. By road, it takes around 70 hours. Often, mangoes arrived rotten when transported in trucks.
Ashok Kumar Verma, Bengaluru divisional railway manager, SWR, also said that transporting produce by Kisan Rail was cheaper and faster than by road. Kisan Rail was announced in the 2020-21 Union Budget. "The primary objective of these trains is to increase income in the farm sector by connecting production centres to markets/realisation centres across the country," said a SWR official. "The services are operated on time-tabled routes and their punctuality is strictly monitored. This is beneficial when transporting farm produce."
