One of the key highlights for the Railways sector in the recent Union Budget was the proposal to come up with three new dedicated freight corridors (DFC). The construction of the current Eastern and Western dedicated freight corridors are expected to be completed by June 2022.
Ravindra Kumar Jain, managing director of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL), told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview that the three new DFCs will see an investment of over Rs 2 lakh crore. He expects the projects to be instrumental in taking the share of railways in overall freight traffic from 35 per cent to around 45 per cent in the coming years.
He added that the Eastern and Western DFCs only will surpass the current traffic handled by the Indian Railways within a decade.
Edited Excerpts:
Q. The Budget announced three new DFCs. What are its prospects?
In this year’s Budget, three new DFCs were proposed. One is from Kharagpur to Vijayawada covering 1,100-kilo meter (km), which is called East Coast Corridor. The second one is from Kharagpur to Bhusawal with an approximate length of 2,000 Km and is called East-West DFC. The third one or North-South DFC will start from Vijayawada to Itarsi covering 975 km. Overall, around 4,000 km of DFC is being planned at an approximate cost of over Rs 2 lakh crore.
These three corridors were selected based on the traffic requirements, looking into wherever there is a possibility of additional freight traffic. For that, DFCCIL is entrusted with the work to come out with a detailed project report (DPR). This DPR includes fixation of the alignment, cost estimate and better traffic projections. Our work has already commenced in the field and we expect to come out with an interim DPR by the end of this year and final DPR by the first quarter of the next financial year.
Q. What is the traffic projection for these routes?
All these routes have the potential for heavy freight traffic. For example, in the East-Coast corridor, there are iron mines and also coal belts. Also, we have the potential for port connectivity in the route. That area was not well served by the rail route, except the coastal railway line. The ports in these areas are being developed under various government schemes, so in future, there will be huge export and import traffic. In the past, we have seen that from ports almost 70-80 per cent of traffic goes by roads. So, we want to get more traffic from the ports to the railways.
For the East-West corridor, there is a heavy congestion in the existing network. That will be taken over by the DFC. Similarly, for North to South also, there is no capacity available in existing lines. The existing lines will be de-choked by these DFCs.
Q. What is the status of the Eastern and Western DFCs?
DFCs have faced many difficulties, the biggest one was land acquisition and the second one was the removal of shifting of utilities. You can see that after 2014, the real serious work has taken place. Before that from 2009-14, the project saw only Rs 5,000 crore investment. After that, now the total expenditure has touched Rs 70,000 crore. That means around Rs 65,000 crore has been invested from 2014 onwards.
We have made progress in the entire land acquisition. Around 99 per cent of the land is acquired, very few chunks, less than a kilometre of land in one or two places, is yet to be obtained. Otherwise, we have obtained all the land. In terms of utility shifting, almost 99.8 per cent of it has been done. Now, we are on the proper path. We are expecting that by March 2021, we will be reaching up to Palanpur. By the end of this year, we will be completing till Vadodara and by June 2022, we will be reaching up to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT).
Similarly, in the Eastern DFC, by June 2022 we will be completing the entire work from Ludhiana to Dadri to Mugal Sarai to Sonnagar. So, by June 2022, both the DFCs will be completed. Almost all the hurdles have been taken care of, so our work towards achieving the target is optimistically paced.
Q. What will be the major change that DFC will bring to the railway sector in India?
Our average speed is much higher than the average speed of the Indian Railways. It is touching two to three times the average speed of the Indian Railways.
We are targeting that whatsoever gross million tonne (GMT) is being handled by the Indian Railways, 40 per cent of that GMT will come to us within two years. Within 20 years, whatsoever 100 per cent of the traffic that they are carrying, more than that will come on DFC.
We have the latest technologies for signalling, telecom and also for the track. We can run 120 trains per day per direction. Indian Railways trains carry only 5,000 metric tonnes. Our train can carry up to 13,000 metric tonnes. So, 120 trains per day per direction, will be a huge quantity of traffic. That too can be further increased to 140 if required. We have a very high potential in terms of carrying capacity. In the times to come, if the Indian railways is carrying 1225 GMT traffic, within two decades with these two DFCs, the entire 1225 GMT can be handled by us.
DFC is here for a quantum jump in Railway traffic, not for an incremental jump. We also intend that we should not only concentrate on the normal heavy bulk commodities that the Indian Railways is working on. We will work on different commodities. We will have to take the traffic back from the road. In Western DFC, we will be mostly working for EXIM traffic or the containers and e-commerce and parcels and other similar white goods. So, we will have diversified traffic compared to the Indian Railways.
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