NEW DELHI: After commissioning Gati-Shakti Multi Model Cargo Terminals (GCT) at six places, the Indian Railways have now identified 74 new GCT locations across the country, with 20 of them in the South Indian states under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Gati-Shakti Multi Model Cargo Terminal' policy.
The 'Gati-Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal' policy was launched in 2021 in order to boost investment in the development of additional terminals for handling rail cargos.
"Among the identified 74 new locations, 20 locations are in South India's states namely Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha. In South India, the highest number of 5 new locations for the GCTs have been identified in Telangana followed by 4 in Andhra Pradesh, 3 in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu,4 in Odisha and 1 in Kerala", official sources said.
Apart from the states of South India, 11 new locations have also been identified in Maharashtra for setting up the GCTs, followed by 8 in Bihar, 6 in Punjab, 4 in Jharkhand and West Bengal, and 3 in Gujarat. To be precise, the Railways have set a target to set up 100 GCTs in total within the next three financial years 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 to ensure easy movement of cargo where different modes of transportation would be integrated with the railway transportation network.
The first 'Gati-Shakti Multi Model Cargo Terminal' was recently commissioned at Thaparnagar in Jharkhand under the Asansol division of Indian Railways to facilitate cargo movement seamlessly from adjoining industrial and coal mining areas to different parts of the country.