Indian Railways launches dedicated freight business portal

January 6, 2021: Piyush Goyal, minister for railways, commerce & industry, has launched a dedicated freight business development portal as a one-stop solution for all the needs of Indian Railways' freight customers.

The portal can be accessed by logging on to Indian Railways web site https://indianrailways.gov.in/# or https://www.fois.indianrail.gov.in/RailSAHAY

“First of its kind dedicated freight portal will ensure that all operations stay customer-centric, reduce the costs for logistics providers, provide online tracking facility for suppliers and also simplify the process of goods transportation,” says the release.

Freight business development portal has been designed to replace physical processes with online ones to minimize the need of a human to human interaction.

Features of the portal:

a) New to rail
This portal welcomes all the prospective customers of Indian Railways, introducing freight business and listing various benefits, guiding them to search the most suitable terminal with detail of various terminal facilities and logistics services available, assisting them to choose the right wagon, presenting the expected charges and estimated time for their planned freight transportation. A new customer can register on this portal and place demand for wagons in the most convenient way.

b) Existing customers
The personalized dashboard of freight business portal shall bring the single view, which gives access to its entire business with Indian Railways, outstanding indents, on-run consignments, status of various interactions, facility to apply for various services and raising concerns. Live track on-run consignments through our GIS views, single click applications for various services: discount schemes, diversion, rebooking, demurrage and wharfage waivers, stacking and permissions. Get to know about rake allotments and pendency/maturity of indents at various freight terminals.

c) Commodity pages
The portal has commodity pages on major commodities transported by Railways: coal, minerals and ores, food grain, flour & pulses, cement & clinker, chemical manure, iron and steel, petroleum products, container services and automobile.

One can find the most suitable terminals suitable wagon, freight charges, expected transit time and incentive schemes for a selected commodity, in a district or state. Introducing different types of wagons that carry commodity and their loading preferences, presenting a variety of incentive schemes to facilitate logistics requirements and flexibility of two-point loadings/unloadings.

d) Tools and services
Get access to various tools and services for planning optimum freight transportation with Indian Railways. Rate slabs for various commodity movements, wagon catalogue, terminal selector, smart calculator and track & trace. Information on various important services like timetabled movements, mini rake services and approved two-point rake combinations are just a click away now.

e) Logistics partners
Indian Railways invite partnerships in freight operations across the country. One can join the network through investments in private sidings, private freight terminals or railways owned goods shed to make railways, a part of supply chain. Investments in rolling stock could fetch benefits like assured availability and incentives in freight charges. Railways invited aggregators, truckers, warehouse owners and labour providers to offer their services for 9000+ freight customers at 4000+ freight terminals.

f) Support to customers
The customers can contact Indian Railway officials on phone or in writing. The customers can send their suggestion, query or complaint to Indian Railways through contact us option. For every request received in writing, a unique request ID is sent to the customer to track the status of the request.

To further boost freight operations, Indian Railways launches Freight Business Development portal designed with 'Customer First' principle.

The portal will enhance ease of doing business & simplify process of goods transportation. #RailFreightPortal

https://t.co/WlxsA3v1mn pic.twitter.com/Pvl1Np2b8v

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) January 5, 2021