KOLLAM: The railway goods shed in Kollam, which used to handle more than 2.5 lakh bags of rice a week, is lying empty for the past eight days. Headload workers and lorry agents alleged that rice-laden goods trains from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had stopped arriving here. Instead, the services of these trains were being terminated at Ernakulam and the rice stocks unloaded there.

The headload workers alleged that it could be a conspiracy and that a section of the railway staff and wholesale rice dealers could be behind it.

Though there was no rice shortage in Kollam, if the situation continued, an artificial rice scarcity could arise in Kollam and the other districts, which depended on rice supply from the goods shed here.

A railway official who did not want to be identified said that the railways had no role in the development. In fact, freight charges for rice to Kollam were a major revenue earner for the railways and hence there was no need for it to suddenly stop the rice transport to Kollam.

Almost 1,000 people depend on the goods shed for their livelihood. They include 300 headload workers, 500 lorry workers and about 150 clearance agents. For the past eight days their livelihood had been affected.

The authorities said that trains carrying rice would start arriving again at the Kollam goods shed in five days.

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