Trying to make a little difference for conservation of climate, Central Railway’s Nagpur Division is serious about reducing dependency on paper. The officials have hit upon an idea to utilise trendy bags for linen provided in air conditioned coaches. The division is trying to rope in an agency for branding the linen bags supplied on board Duronto Express, the popular train on Nagpur-Mumbai-Nagpur circuit. Aman Mittal, Sr Divisional Commercial Manager, stated they are ready to provide an opportunity for advertisers to position their brand among people. The idea is that the linen, the bed sheets can be neatly tucked in plastic bags that would carry imprint of brand that the advertiser wants to market.

 

The division has conceived the linen bags branding as a pilot project under Non-fare Revenue (NFR) head. It is now driving the business over Indian Railways, which is trying to look beyond normal freight and ticket revenue. Railways is trying innovative ideas, be it exploiting its vast land bank and space at stations to utilising the passenger front to earn few extra bucks. About the branding, Mittal said that, nearly 1,500 linen packets are supplied daily to Duronto Express. Till now, its primary maintenance was done at Nagpur, but over the past few months, it was shifted to Mumbai Division owing to lack of pit capacity here.

 

According to Mittal, the Division is thinking on the lines of linen being supplied in proper bags that post usage can be kept by travellers with themselves. This way the division can cut down usage of paper bags that are used for keeping the bed sheets that are provided to travellers, mostly in air conditioned coaches. The same would help in curbing the need for paper, which again is dependent on forest produce, mostly trees. So by ditching the paper bags, the Railways can go a long way in contributing to environment conservation.

 

The idea was taken from shops that provide the bags along with groceries or at garments stores that have their brand name inscribed on the carry bags. The Sr. DCM said, for advertisers, this is an excellent opportunity to get their brand positioned among niche clients as those travelling in Duronto Express are upscale crowd, mostly in air conditioned coaches. So division officials are exploring local market players who are still debating the idea which per se looks a win-win situation. There is tendency of people to keep the bags with them as same are utilised for other purposes for its lifetime.

 

Through Non Fare Revenue, Railways is trying hard to diversify its portfolio as to business propositions. Earlier, the division had successfully leveraged the space at Nagpur Railway Station to set up a canteen on de-commissioned railway coach and later, establishment of emergency medical response room to setting up a 24x7 pharmacy. The EMR is now being replicated at other stations in Nagpur Division of Central Railway, one of them being at Betul. Division officials were banking on the linen branding because if same had succeeded, then they could have replicated it on other long distance Mail/Express trains. Now the marketing team is again approaching the big players in the market and trying to convince them of the huge business prospect.