Rlys' Dedicated Freight Corridor to see the light soon

One of the country’s ambitious projects — Dedicated Freight Corridor — will finally see the light of the day as the Railways will make operational a 56-km stretch between Durgavati and Sasaram in Bihar during the next few months. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a recent meeting with the DFCC officials expressing his desire to expedite the project, efforts are on to commission the Durgavati-Sasaram section on a pilot basis in the current fiscal. Constructed at an estimated cost of about `1,000 crore, the 56-km-long track to be made functional first will have 18 manned level crossings. It will be a double-line track and all the level crossings will be eliminated in due course as the aim is to make the entire DFC a level crossing-free track in the country.

“Our aim is to complete the project before time. While a small section will be operational before this fiscal year, on the whole the Eastern and Western corridors will be made functional in phases beginning from 2017-18 to 2019-20. Once they are operational, significant amount of goods traffic is expected to be shifted from roads to rail,” DFC Managing Director Adesh Sharma said at a Press meet.

Railways is constructing 3,360-km-long track comprising both Eastern and Western corridors for exclusive movement of freight trains at an estimated cost of about `82,000 crore. While the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor covers 1,856 km, Western DFC involves construction of 1,504-km-long track.

With DFC operational, Sharma said the Railways will also come out with a time table for goods trains, which is not possible now. “It will take 20 hours to transport goods from Delhi to Kolkata or Mumbai on DFC which otherwise takes about two to three days now because of the saturation of path,” Sharma said detailing the project’s benefit. 

At present, the Railways’ share is about 36 per cent of total goods traffic; and with DFC fully operational, the share is likely to increase to about 40 per cent to 45 per cent. Funded by World Bank and partly by Railways itself, Eastern DFC starting from Dankuni from West Bengal will pass through Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to terminate in ludhiana.

Western DFC between Delhi-Mumbai is funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The double-line track from JNPT to Dadri through Vadodara, Samand, Palanpur and Rewari will be 1,504-km-long.