Indian Railways’ Kisan Rail is helping in transforming the lives of many small farmers of Maharashtra with increase in income, motivating for sustenance of their livelihood.
Recently, small farmers from Latur and Osmanabad region of Maharashtra, for the first-time loaded flowers in Kisan Rail from Kurduwadi station to Adarsh Nagar Delhi thereby giving access to new market, yielding increase in income.
The railways in a statement said," For the first time ever on 9 March 2021, small green house farmers of Latur and Osmanabad region have loaded 650 kg of flowers in Kisan Rail from Kurduwadi station to Adarsh Nagar Delhi. These flowers were grown in Padoli, Wagholi, Ter, Panewadi & Upla villages of Osmanabad district and Murud in Latur district known as drought hit areas of Maharashtra."
The small farmers holding one/two acres of land are excited about the access to the new market with quick & cheaper transportation of the most highly perishable flowers through Kisan Rail yielding them higher price. A small farmer Shridhar Bhimrao Kale from Dumala, Osmanabad, Maharashtra was excited about the new, bigger market access to Delhi through Kisan Rail said “flowers are now transported to the market quickly and at low cost and sold at a very profitable price". A farmer from Murud village of Latur district, Bibhisan Nade said “Kisan Rail leads me to Delhi market and fetched a higher price for my flowers at low transportation cost".
Kisan Rail introduced by Indian Railways are quietly transforming the lives of the farmers of Maharashtra enabling them to increase their income through creation of seamless supply chain of Perishable goods (fruits & vegetables) as well as essential commodities during this pandemic from Solapur, Ahmednagar, Kalaburagi, Latur, Osmanabad, Nashik, Jalgaon, Amaravati and Nashik districts of Maharashtra to the various new markets in Northern India and Eastern parts of India like Delhi NCR, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Northeast region of India. Until 12th March 2021, from Maharashtra 61,252 tonnes of perishables farm produce were loaded in 200 trips of Kisan Rail benefitting large number of marginal farmers thus transforming their livelihood.
