Dedicated Freight Corridor project to be completed by 2019

Railways on Friday assured the industry that the ambitious Rs 81,459 cr worth 'Dedicated Freight Corridor' (DFC) project, meant for faster goods movement, will be completed by 2019. "Prevailing scenario in goods transportation is not very good and everybody wants faster movement. Railways is constructing separate corridors for freight to speed up transportation and it will be completed in time," Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha said here at the Assocham conference.

According to the timeline, work on DFC will be completed in phases between 2017 and 2019. Highlighting the abysmal speed of freight trains, Sinha said, "Currently goods trains are moving at 25/26 km per hour speed. The speed will go up to 100 km per hour on the DFC which will be beneficial for the industry." Railways is constructing Eastern Corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (1840 kms) and the Western Corridor from Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (1502 kms).

"At the moment work is going on two corridors - East and West. There will be two more corridors and pre-feasibility study is being undertaken for that," Sinha said. The entire Western Corridor is being funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), while the Eastern Corridor from Mughalsarai to Ludhiana is being funded by the World Bank.

Seeking private investment in rail infrastructure, Sinha asked the industry to come forward to participate in capacity augmentation. "You can invest liberally in rail infrastructure development as railways need big investment," he said. Referring to the land acquisition, he said "Though acquiring land is becoming a problem, it has almost completed land acquisition for the project." He also said PMO is regularly monitoring the major infrastructure projects, especially those concerning Railways.

Speaking at the meet, DFC Managing Director Adesh Sharma said the "DFC is the need of the day and no country can progress unless there is a reliable transportation system." Sharma further said main trunk lines are fully saturated now so there is a need for faster movement of goods.