Gorakhpur (UP): A consignment of fertilizer took almost four years to travel 1,326 km to reach its destination, courtesy the railways. A goods train wagon carrying 1,316 bags of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilizer was booked on November 10, 2014. When it reached Basti railway station in up from Vishakhapatnam on Wednesday around 3.30 pm, even the rail officials and staff were taken by surprise. The distance is otherwise covered in 42 hours and 13 minutes.
The chief public relations officer of North Eastern Railway zone, Sanjay Yadav, said, "Sometimes, when some wagon or bogie becomes sick (unfit to ferry), it is sent to the yard and it seems that the same happened in this case too." The consignee is Ramchandra Gupta, a businessman of Basti, and the wagon was booked in his name in 2014 from Vishakhapatnam through Indian Potash limited (IPL), Yadav said.
When contacted, Gupta said, "It was company material and I had not paid for it. The matter is between the company and the Indian railway."