‘RAIL NEER’ TO ROLL OUT FROM KERALA
Indian
Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of Railways,
has expedited the process to roll out packaged drinking water from Kerala for
sale onboard trains and stations. The product will be named ‘Rail Neer’ as in
other parts of the country.The IRCTC has invited tenders for the proposed plant
to come up in railway land near Parassala on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. The
plant in Parassala has been proposed in the public-private-partnership mode on
Build, Own, Operate, and, Transfer (BOOT) basis. Railways will provide 4,000
square metres of land for 15 years to those selected through bidding. Apart
from the land cost, the plant needs an investment of Rs.6 crore as per current
estimates.It is estimated that one lakh bottles of water will be rolled out a
day from Parassala. The source of the water has not been disclosed. Railways
will insist on adherence to Euro standards, going beyond the parameters laid
down by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
The
fully automatic bottling plant will have to produce and supply packaged
drinking water in specified sizes of one litre and 500 ml conforming to IS
14543: 2004 specification exclusive to Indian Railways.At present, the packaged
water produced at the newly commissioned plant at Palur in Tamil Nadu is
distributed on trains starting from Chennai and Bangalore. It is also
distributed to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and some regions of
Kerala.The daily requirement of packaged drinking water in the railway network
is approximately 30 lakh bottles a day. At present, IRCTC can provide only 3.8
lakh bottles a day. The aim is to take it to 5.8 lakh bottles a day by the end
of this year.‘Rail Neer,’ which was launched 11 years ago, gave an income of
Rs.45.15 crore in 2011-12, as against the Rs.23.96 crore in the previous year.
Railways are looking into IT-based product verification to prevent counterfeit
and substandard produce from being distributed.Parassala was selected for
setting up the plant, sidelining the earlier decision to base it near
Thiruvananthapuram, for which 2430 square metres of land near Karamana was
identified. The proposal then was to source water from the Karamana river.
Prof. John Kurakar
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