Amul offers business proposition to Railways on Twitter

Dairy giant Amul on Monday reached out to the Indian Railways on its official Twitter handle with a business proposition to use its refrigerated parcel vans to transport Amul butter across India.

The Railways promptly responded on the micro-blogging site, using a popular tag line of the company for the brand. “IR will be utterly butterly delighted to get the taste of India to every Indian,” the ministry’s handle @RailMinIndia tweeted.

The Indian Railways extensively uses Twitter to address passenger woes. But this could perhaps be the first time the national transporter has received a business proposition on the micro-blogging site. “@RailMinIndia, Amul is interested in using refrigerated parcel vans to transport Amul Butter across India. Request to please advise,” the dairy major had tweeted to the Railways.

The Indian Railways had introduced the refrigerated van service a few years ago with an aim to facilitate the transportation of perishable commodities such as fruits, vegetables, frozen meats/poultry and chocolates, but most of the vans were lying defunct, according to a ministry official.

However, this service exists only on specific routes. “We would certainly like to capture this traffic. Let us see what can be done,” the official added. The senior divisional manager of the Ahmedabad Division will meet officials from Amul today to discuss this, said the official. He said that the South Western Railway has some refrigerated vans, they can be repaired and used by the Railways to assist Amul.

This resulted in a flurry of responses from Twitterati, some appreciating the transparency while others complained about the poor quality in train services:

While there were also those who weren't so pleased and lashed out: