CHENNAI: Widening freight revenue opportunities, Southern Railway has now added a whole new class of ‘goods’- livestock. Officials told Express they have already completed two such transportation in the last couple of months and have many potential customers from western Tamil Nadu mulling over the use of railway to carry cattle to other parts of the country, especially North-Eastern States.
A senior official said they have made two bulk livestock transportation in the last two months. The first was of 20 cows from Villupuram to Shalimar in West Bengal. The latest was on Tuesday when another 20 cows were loaded at Salem, to be delivered at Guwahati in Assam, from where it would be transported by road to Meghalaya.
The transportation to Meghalaya is part of a large order from a private breeder, involving a transfer of 2,400 cows, mostly hybrid varieties. Railways will make a total of 120 trips, with one wagon of cows being carried every week.
“Several private parties from Krishnagiri, Salem and nearby areas have contacted us. They wanted to take cattle to various States like Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal,” the official said. “Recently, as part of zoo exchange programme, we transported a tiger from Thiruvananthapuram Zoo to Dimapur (Nagaland) and brought back bears.
Although the revenue share right now is minimal, livestock transport is profitable as we are not incurring any additional expenditure,” he said. A parcel wagon is just added to an express train and railways stand to earn around `2.5 lakh per wagon.