india

Updated: May 09, 2019 00:07 IST

The Indian Railways has made Rail Neer sale mandatory at 74 more stations as part of its efforts to augment the business of its bottled water brand, two officials familiar with the matter said.

There are around 3,000 stations, where sale of Rail Neer is mandatory currently.

This comes with the opening of four new water bottling plants in Hapur (Uttar Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat), which would help the railways meet 50% of the total demand for water on trains.

The railways produced six lakh litre Rail Neer until 2018-19 even as the daily water requirement was 16 lakh litre, according to a railway official. The total production will reach eight lakh litre daily with the opening of the four new plants.

One of the officials cited above said Rail Neer was earlier able to meet the requirement for 37% of the total water demand. “…at locations where we are not able to provide Rail Neer, we have tied up with other vendors. By next year, 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, which transports an estimated 23 million people daily.

In 2016-17, the railways earned ~172 crore through Rail Neer sales. The target for 2017-18 was ~190 crore and it managed to achieve the target.

The second official said 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.

He added 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 produces Rail Neer at seven plants, two of which have been established under the public-private partnership model. The number of water plants will be doubled to 16 lakh litre by the year-end, 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.