NEW DELHI (Metro Rail News): The Indian Railways has made Rail Neer (bottled water) sale mandatory at 74 more stations. Indian Railway wanted to expand the business of its Rail Neer (bottled water) brand said, official.
Currently, there are around 3,000 stations, where sale of Rail Neer is mandatory..
To meet the meet 50% of the total demand for water on trains, Indian Railway opens four new water bottling plants in Hapur (Uttar Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat).
In 2018-19, The railways produced six lakh litre, Rail Neer, as the daily water requirement was 16 lakh litre, according to a railway official. After the opening of four new plants, The total production will reach eight lakh litre daily
Earlier, Rail Neer was able to meet the requirement for 37% of the total water demand. we have tied up with other vendors at locations where we are not able to provide Rail Neer. In 2020, we hope to meet 75% of the demand as tenders for other plants are out and our aim is to meet 100% of the demand,” said the official.
India has one of the biggest railway networks and transports around 23 million people daily. The railways earned ~172 crores through Rail Neer sales in 2016-17. The target for 2017-18 was ~190 crore and it managed to achieve the target.
The railway will provide land either on its own or through a memorandum of understanding with state governments for a further increase in Rail Neer production said official.
the packaged water has a high potential for more revenue generation. “We were losing revenues as we were not able to meet even half of the water demand. But once the remaining plants are commissioned, the production capacity and the revenues will increase.”
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) produces Rail Neer at seven plants, two of which have been established under the public-private partnership model (PPP). The number of water plants will be doubled to 16 lakh liter by the end of 2019, according to the railway.
It is mandatory to sell only Rail Neer at Mathura, Gwalior, Bhopal, Kathgodam, Godhra, Amravati and Rajkot stations as the plants which are opened are close to these locations.
