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IRCTC plans expansion to increase Rail Neer production
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Thursday, 14 March, 2013, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
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fiogf49gjkf0d Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has chalked out an expansion plan for its branded Rail Neer mineral water.
In this regard, it is working to expand its production plants to cater to the growing demand by establishing six bottling units. The IRCTC has selected locations at Ambala in Punjab; Amethi in Uttar Pradesh; Mal and Farakka in West Bengal; Nasik in Maharashtra; and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; for the purpose.
To reduce cost of packaging in the Rail Neer bottle, LDPE shrink film is replaced. The customary practice was use of corrugated box packing. Now the automatic wraparound labelling in place of PVC shrink labelling has been out in use in fiscal 2012-13. Preform and cap have also been redesigned to reduce weight.
1 litre bottles
The Corporation has set up three drinking water plants at Nangloi near New Delhi, Danapur in Bihar and Palur in Tamil Nadu for the production of one litre packaged drinking water (PDW) bottles. The sale price of all the Rail Neer is based on the cost of production and distribution. As per the existing policy guidelines wherever, Rail Neer Packaged Water bottles are not adequately available, other Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)-approved packaged drinking water bottles having requisite standards are shortlisted by Zonal Railways and permitted for sale over the Railways, according to an official in Southern Railways.
The plant at Palur is designed to make 1.8 lakh bottles per day on three shift basis. During the year 2012, the production at plant has reached a level of 0.88 lakh bottles per day with personnel working on two-shift basis.
The production at other Rail Neer plants at Nangloi and Danapur were 3.34 crore and 3.24 crore bottles respectively during the year as against installed capacity of 3.34 crore bottles at both plants. Further, these two plants are able to cater less than 5 per cent of the demand.
"There is huge requirement of PDW on Indian Railways. Therefore a third plant of 15,000 cases per day or 1.6 lakh bottles per day has been commissioned at Palur. This will take care of requirement of PDW in trains originating from Chennai and Bengaluru," stated an official.
Trains and units
According to information on a public domain, the Rail Neer produced at Nangloi is distributed on mobile trains and to static catering units primarily in Delhi area and other states such as Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Western UP and Rajasthan. In addition, supply is also made to Parliament House, PMO, Railway Board and ministry of external affairs.
The water produced at newly commissioned plant at Palur is distributed on trains starting from two metro cities in south India namely Chennai and Bengaluru. Further, it is distributed to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Kerala.
The Rail Neer produced at Danapur is distributed to states of Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, eastern UP, Assam, and Orissa. The plant at Danapur is already complying ISO: 9001- 2008 quality management system certification. The facility at Nangloi has also got certified during the year 2011-12.
Now the Rail Neer Plant, Palur, is in the process of getting ISO: 9001:2008 and likely to get certification in the year 2012-13. The result of the test, carried out by accredited laboratories on Rail Neer Packaged Drinking Water indicates that the quality of Rail Neer conforms to European Economic Community (EEC) norms for pesticide residue.
Requirement
According to one report, the daily requirement of packaged drinking water over Indian Railway network is approximately 30 lakh bottles per day, against which, at present, IRCTC capacity is 3.8 lakh bottles a day, which is estimated to become 5.8 lakh bottles a day by end of 2013 when a plant at Ambernath near Mumbai will become operational. This will cater to about 19% of total requirement.
Further, the Railway Board has approved the proposal to set up a Rail Neer Plant at Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh on ‘company owned’ model. The taking over of land and other preliminary work shall be completed by the end of FY 2012-13 and with optimum project management, the plant is likely to be completed in FY 2013-14. It is planned to have 90,000 bottles per day capacity. Railway has already finalised the site near Bilaspur Railway Station on the bank of Arpa River.
In an attempt to address unmet demand of drinking water in Delhi area, another packaged drinking water plant is being planned in northern capital region (NCR).
In order to handle the issue of drinking water wastage, steps are being taken to set up a production line for 500 ml bottle at Nangloi plant. The 500 ml Rail Neer bottles will be served in Shatabdi trains having travelling time up to 5 hours.
As part of environmental protection measures, officials of IRCTC said that efforts have been taken for the collection and disposal of used Rail Neer bottles to prevent its misuse. Measures have also been introduced for zero liquid discharge system in Nangloi Rail Neer plant. In addition, the railway officials have also embarked on a tree plantation drive at Rail Neer plants across the country.
During the year 2011-12, the Rail Neer business registered an income of Rs 45.15 crore as against Rs 23.96 crore achieved during year 2010-11. But this did not include sale of Rail Neer through departmental catering. The revenues for 2012-13 are now under process.
As part of future efforts, the Indian Railways is also adopting IT-based product verification to prevent fake or counterfeit, spurious and not-of-standard quality PDW being distributed.
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