Comments
Cancel 40 flights and India goes into a tizzy. Cancel 2,000 trains and it yawns.
Yet, thanks to the Jat agitation for OBC status since March 5 over 2,000 trains have been cancelled or terminated half-way without attention being diverted from Wiki and other leaks.
2,000 trains affected
Almost 2,000 – yes 2,000 – trains have been cancelled, diverted or short terminated (ended before destination). Till Sunday evening, there were about 1,024 train cancellations, 436 diversions and 241 short terminations. Multiply that by 1,500, which is the average passenger load, to get the number of passengers affected – around 3 million.
Until Saturday evening, 7.94 lakh passengers had cancelled tickets and the Railways had returned Rs 6.7 crore as refund, according to the Northern Railway.
Frightened freight
Foodgrain movement from Punjab (primarily by Food Corporation of India for the PDS) to different parts of the country, and movement of coal to power houses in Haryana and Punjab have also been hit.
Since the Railways does not have a time-table for freight trains, it is difficult to assess the financial damage. But a power plant in Hissar had to be shut down due to unavailability of coal, say reports.
“We have diverted the freight rakes to the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar rail link, leading to much higher load on this section. To clear foodgrain and coal movement, we have cancelled express trains between New Delhi and Kalka including New Delhi-Kalka-New Delhi Shatabdi Express, for March 22 and 23,” said a Northern Railway official.
Containers contained
Container Corporation of India's (Concor) ICD in Moradabad, a handicraft hub, from which almost 25 rakes run in a month, has also been hit.
Mr Anil Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, Concor, says: “We have run 17 trains till date with delays. Detentions have increased both at Moradabad ICD and ports in Mumbai and western region.”
Mr Prem Suri, Managing Director, Hansa Agencies Pvt Ltd, exporting handicraft lamps and lanterns in Moradabad, said: “I have started carrying some of my cargo to Concor's inland container depot (ICD) in Dadri. But the problem is this leads to multiple handling and thus possibilities of breakage.”
Mr S.P. Agarwal, President, Delhi Exporters Association, said the strike is affecting raw material coming into the national capital territory and labour movement from nearby Sonepat and Panipat. He said movement of finished export products has also been hit.
Any delay in the delivery of goods will lead to buyers overseas asking for a 10-25 per cent reduction in the price of the item, he pointed out.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.