Parcel Management System of Indian Railways to be extended

The new parcel management system (PMS) of Indian Railways will be extended to 523 locations now. Earlier this system was only in place at 84 locations. This decision was taken in a bid to provide transportation for small consignments across a huge network of stations.

Highlights

As per the statement of the Indian Railways, the small businesses and traders in the small cities and towns have been using these services to transport their merchandise from the big cities and production centres to a place where business is fast, reliable and cheap. Under this, the charging of the parcels is based on the weight and volume of the commodity and not the type of commodity.

Parcel Management System

Phase three of the computerisation of the PMS will be rolled out under which, this system will be extended to 523 locations from 84 locations to additional 143 locations in phase-II. The extension of the system will bring following changes:

1. It will include the provision of 120 days advance booking,
2. The system will show the availability of parcel space on online e-forwarding note module on the website of PMS.
3. It will also help in generation of forwarding note online by registered customers along with the fare estimate.
4. Booking of parcel or luggage across the parcel office at stations with the help of computerised counters
5. Automatic capturing of weight by electronic weighing of consignment
6. Barcoding of the consignment to track and status updates of packages using the GPRS network transmission of data
7. SMS updates to customers at each stage.

The new Parcel Management System will also comprise of an Freight System Ledger Accounting (FSLA) module do to online preparation of manifest for registered newspapers and magazines.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2021