New Delhi: Central Railside Warehouse Company Ltd (CRWC), subsidiary of Central Warehousing Corporation, has entered into a joint venture (JV) agreement with IFFCO Kisan SEZ and Indian Potash Ltd for development of integrated railside warehouse complex and freight terminal at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh (AP).

“This is as part of the plan to set up 10 warehouses at rail heads to store commodities besides upgrading its existing 19 warehousing complexes for Rs 200 crore,” said Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs. Paswan on Thursday informed the members of Parliamentary Consultative Committee about the activities and plans of CRWC,

The Central Railside Warehouse Company Ltd has planned 10 new warehouses with temperature controlled system at rail heads to facilitate handling and storage of bagged commodities. The company has undertaken upgrade of its existing 19 railside warehousing complexes across the country for Rs 200 crore.

Paswan said that “the corporation is being diversified to make it more competitive. As part of its diversification initiatives, CRWC It has proposed to set up silos for storage of foodgrains for FCI at Jalalabad and New Jalpaiguri with the Railways.”

Paswan said: “The CRWC is also planning a foray into road transportation and has been awarded a contract for transportation of manganese ore for Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. The corporation is in discussions with NTPC for exploring avenues for bulk transportation of fly ash through specialised rakes.”

Briefing about the performance of Consumer Helpline being run by the Department of Consumer Affairs, Paswan said the capacity of the call centre is being increased to 49 desks from existing 14 and it will be further expanded to 60. Six zonal Helpline centres will also be set up at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Kolkata, Patna and Jaipur. A cloud-based new Customer relations software has been developed to integrate the entire consumer grievance handling activities at helpline centres.

Web chat and Mobile App will be developed in the near future for handling consumer complaints. Participating in the discussions, the members of Parliament suggested a publicity campaign to create awareness about consumer redressal system including the Consumer Helpline. They were of the view that disposal of cases at consumer forums should be expedited by strengthening infrastructure, the statement said.