Indian Railways (IR) has amended its land monetisation policy, issued in 2022, to allow the setting up of sorting, grading, packaging and labelling units on its vacant land. This move is expected to boost the e-commerce cargo (parcels) transported through IR. The amendment removes the earlier requirement for goods movement in at least one direction on the IR network to qualify for concessional leases.
Under the revised policy, warehouses, storage facilities, grinding units, silos, tanks, conveyor belts and decanting facilities will now be explicitly permitted. Additionally, enabling infrastructure including rail and road weigh bridges, truck parking, and assembly or disassembly centres will also be allowed. Furthermore, the number of parcels transported by IR increased to 44 million in 2024-25, up from 31 million in 2023-24.