Indian Railways Launches 'Rail Parcel' App, Boosts Freight with Rs 14,500 Crore

To improve the efficiency of rail freight handling at the terminals, Indian Railway has adopted a two-pronged approach: encouraging the development of modern rail freight terminals under the Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT) policy and augmenting/upgrading the infrastructure at railway-owned goods sheds. Upto March 5, 128 GCTs have been commissioned, and in-Principle approvals for 288 GCTs have been issued across Indian Railways. In addition, for improvement of customer amenities at goods and parcel terminals all across the country, an amount of Rs. 14,500 crore has been allocated for the financial year 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26.

CONCOR, a PSU under the Ministry of Railways, is also providing Door-to-Door parcel services by utilising the JPP-RCS over the Delhi-Kolkata and Mumbai-Kolkata sectors. CONCOR is also providing Door-to-Door logistics under a pilot project at Sonik Goods shed.

The Joint Parcel Product (JPP) initiative with India Post was introduced on pilot basis in 2022 over certain routes to target business-to-customer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) market with focus on e-Commerce and MSME market with an affordable price as per the market trends of weight category between 35 Kgs to 100 Kgs. Under the scheme India Post provided First & Last Mile services, and Indian Railways provided the Middle Mile services.

Based on the experience gained from the pilot, the JPP scheme was made available for other parcel aggregators and was also renamed as Joint Parcel Product - Rapid Cargo Service (JPP-RCS). Under the scheme, online booking of JPP-RCS (in units of VPs) is done by empanelled parcel aggregators through the "Virtual aggregation Platform" (VAP) developed by IR. Currently, 07 pairs of scheduled (time tabled) services are operating between specific locations, which have been planned on the basis of market demand and operational feasibility. Total revenue generated from the JPP-RCS during the current year (upto February 2026) is Rs 56 crore approximately.

A pilot project for the development of a comprehensive "App-Based Platform" for railway parcel logistics was launched by South Central Railway on February 25 for a period of one year. Under this pilot project, door-to-door parcel service is being provided in association with logistics service providers.

The integrated parcel logistics app, "Rail Parcel", has been developed as a digital marketplace wherein selected logistics service providers are on-boarded as partners. These logistics partners offer a range of services including first-mile pickup, last-mile delivery, value-added services such as packaging, etc., with Railways providing the mid-mile transportation through rail services.

The project is being implemented at seventeen stations across seven cities, viz. Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Rajahmundry, Bengaluru and Chennai. At present, three private logistics partners have been on boarded through an Expression of Interest process.

Business Development units functional at all Railway Divisions have been advised to engage with various stakeholders to assess the traffic as well as availability and readiness of logistics service provider for the first and last mile service.

- ANI