Refrigerated rail vans boost cherry trade

For the first time, cherry producers and traders of Srinagar can send cherries to Mumbai through a refrigerated van of the railways from Amritsar. The first such van, attached to the Golden Temple mail, commenced operation from June 1.

This step will not only boost trade, ultimately benefiting the producer and trader, but would also help in preventing transit loss, which is about 15-20 per cent per day, as cherry is a highly perishable commodity. The demand for a refrigerated coach was pending with the railways for the past four years.

Normally, cherries from Srinagar are transported in trucks to Delhi, but with Mumbai, it was being transported from Jammu and Amritsar. Since Jammu has only three trains per week, producers and traders prefer to send it from Amritsar as there are three trains that run from Amritsar to Mumbai daily.

Talking to Business Standard, Department of Horticulture, Planning and Marketing (an agency for facilitating the traders and producers), Jammu and Kashmir, Area Marketing Officer, Harminder Singh said, "There is immense demand for cherry in the Mumbai market as compared to Delhi because of high purchasing power of people. It is expected that the refrigerated van would increase the shelf life of the cherry and would help in preventing transit loss which was about 15-20 per cent per day. With the operation of the refrigerated van we hope to send 17-20 tonnes of cherry per day. Earlier it was 13-14 tonnes per day, while in the case of Delhi it is about 8-10 tonnes per day."

For the past seven years, producers and traders were sending cherries to Mumbai through SLR coaches attached to passenger trains, which have a capacity of four tonnes.

So to transport an average of 13-14 tonnes of cherry per day to Mumbai, they had to use different trains. The fruit ripens in the months of May"�July, and trading is done between 15th May to 15th July.

The refrigerated van, which would have a capacity of 17 tonnes, would be attached to the Frontier Express and would run daily.

The cherry transported through refrigerated van would be charged at Rs. 6.70 per kg of freight cost. Earlier, for parcel van it was being charged at Rs. 2.90 per Kg, but from 1 June it has been Rs. 4.45 per Kg, due to increased freight rate.

Commenting upon the freight charges, Singh added that it would not hamper the trade as it will help in preventing transit loss and in increasing shelf life. Currently, the cherry costs Rs 72-80 per kg in the Mumbai market, while in Amritsar it costs Rs 40-50 per kg.