With stranded apple-laden parcel train reaching Jammu from Budgam and commencement of new Delhi-Budgam-Delhi Joint Parcel Product Rapid Cargo Train (JPP-RCT) service the age old dependency on national highway 44 between Kashmir and Jammu has finally ended and from now onwards transporting fruits and other produce out of Kashmir will become easy-to-go affair.
The Kashmiri traders and fruit growers must thank the government, especially the Railways for bailing out them from decades’ long misery of transporting the fruits while relying on an unpredictable national highway, which used to remain blocked on various accounts besides the time it took to bring the fruits out of Valley.
The maiden run of the aforesaid parcel train carrying stranded apples from Budgam has transformed the things and started a new chapter in the life of fruit traders and growers of Kashmir, who used to suffer a lot in the past due to uncertainty of their produce’s journey to various markets across the country including Jammu.
It is pertinent to mention that the first JPP-RCT service parcel train will get loaded on September 14 from Budgam and will start in the morning of September 15, making things convenient for the people associated with the fruit business.
All said and done, with trains carrying fruits chugging between Delhi and the Valley, the only entity which is going to suffer is the truckers as the new mode of transporting fruits will hit their livelihood in a big way as already the fruit traders have started booking the parcel trains up to its full capacity. As this unique initiative taken by the railways has been liked by the fruit growers and traders, chances are there that the truck industry in J&K face a decline in the business but for the good of the valley’s orchardists this loss has to be confronted with a bold face. For sure, the new initiative will boost the economy of the J&K and give an equal opportunity and level playing field to all the small, medium and large-scale fruit growers and traders of the Valley as fruit carrying capacity of trains is much more than the conventional ways of ferrying apples and pears on trucks.
The important factor is the time taken to bring out fruit from the mountain region. Surely the railways have ensured a bright future for the Kashmiri fruit growers and traders and therefore they should all thank the people behind bringing this new era in the Valley.
