Railways seeks cabinet nod to build 3 freight corridors at Rs. 3 trillion

Railways intends to finish 60-70 per cent of work this fiscal and make them completely operational by 2021. The railways ministry service has looked for the endorsement of the Union cabinet to built three new Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) systems at an absolute investment of about Rs. 3 trillion.

While the East-West Corridor (2,328km) will be worked among Kolkata and Mumbai, the North-South Corridor (2,327km) is arranged among Delhi and Chennai and the East Coast Corridor (1,114km) among Kharagpur and Vijaywada.

Indian Railways' DFC project includes developing five freight corridors across the country. The railways, through its arm Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India Ltd (DFCCIL), is as of now building the initial two freight corridors—Eastern Freight Corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (1,856km) and Western Freight Corridor from Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (1,504km)— at a complete expense of Rs. 81,000 crore (US$ 11.25 billion).

The railways intend to finish more than 60-70 per cent of the work in the two corridors this financial year and make them completely operational by 2021.

India has been grappling high logistics expenses of 16-18 per cent, making its exports uncompetitive vis-à-vis China, which has lower logistics expenses of 8-10 per cent. The government is finishing the DFC venture, which will free up a some of the current railways networks for passenger trains, said by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden budget.
The three new DFCs will cover 5,769km. The primer designing and traffic framework study of these corridors has already been completed.

While the first section of the eastern DFC—200 km extend from Bhadan to Khurja—and western DFC—another 200 km from Rewari to Madar—has been finished, around 1,000km of DFC, including western DFC associating states, for example, Haryana, Maharashtra and eastern DFC interfacing Punjab and West Bengal is expected to be operational in the current year.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.