Door-to-door parcel service to start in 8 cities including Ahmedabad

Indian Railways is now preparing to launch a door-to-door parcel service in 8 major cities of the country, including Ahmedabad. Under this new facility, customers will not need to go to the railway station or go through lengthy paperwork to send parcels. For this service, the Railways has specifically prepared the 'Rail Parcel App', which will work as a digital marketplace.

According to a TV9 Gujarati report, the pilot project for launching this service has been successful, based on which it will now be implemented on a large scale. Under this scheme, besides Ahmedabad, cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Pune have been included. Customers will be able to book parcel pickup and delivery from the comfort of their homes through this mobile app and can also make online payments.

According to a report by The Economic Times, which provides business news, logistics partners will manage the 'first-mile' and 'last-mile' services in this arrangement. That is, the responsibility of picking up goods from the customer's home and delivering the goods from the station in the destination city to the customer's home will be that of the logistics partners. Meanwhile, the work of transporting goods by train from one railway station to another will be done by Indian Railways itself.

According to a senior railway official, the booking window for door-to-door parcel delivery will open 15 days before the scheduled departure time of the train. Customers will be able to book up to one day before the train departs. Logistics partners have been allowed to hand over the goods to railway employees up to one hour before the train departs. Additionally, logistics partners can also provide other facilities like packaging to customers.

If a customer wants to cancel a booking, rules have been set for that as well. If the booking is cancelled before the goods are picked up by the logistics partner, the Railways will deduct only a ₹10 clerkage charge and refund the remaining railway fare. The remaining amount of the refund will be determined according to the respective logistics company's own policy, which will be informed to the customers at the time of booking.

Keeping the festive season in mind, the Railway Board has also provided relief to traders. Since a large amount of goods are transported during festivals like Diwali and Christmas, a discount will be given on round-trip bookings of parcel coaches. According to a circular, parcel aggregators will now be able to book round-trips, i.e., to and fro, at 1.5 times the one-way fare. This new initiative will save customers' time and also reduce the transportation costs for traders.