Dedicated Freight Corridor project will be completed in time: Minister
Indian Railways is confident that its most ambitious project - ‘Dedicated Freight Corridor (DRC)’ will be completed in time i.e. by 2019. Manoj Sinha, Minister of State (Railways) said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the two dedicated freight corridors, west and east, completed in time, even as the government is planning for more such lines.” He assured the industry that despite several problems being faced in this initiative, the railways had “full confidence” of completing them in time and added that the Allahabad-Mughalsarai sector of the eastern corridor would be completed faster. The project is worth Rs 81,459 crore and the work is expected to complete in two phases between 2017 to 2019. While inaugurating an ASSOCHAM conference on “Dedicated Freight Corridors-Challenges and Opportunities, Sinha disclosed that the corridors would be managed from two centralized locations i.e Ahmedabad and Allahabad. Elaborating on the advantages of the DFCs, Sinha cited that the corridors would be utilizing the latest technology in rail transportation enabling average speed of freight trains to be raised from 25 kmph to 80 kmph and then 100 kmph. “The corridors would use high horsepower engines for haulage and specially designed wagons”, added the Minister. Furthermore, Hemant Kumar, Member (Mechanical) Railway Board and Adesh Sharma, MD, DFCCIL, explained that these dedicated high speed corridors would help overcome the high capacity constraints currently experienced on the western and eastern trunk lines and the four diagonals. They would improve the delivery time of freight. Avdesh Sharma also added that, “these corridors would also help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a million tonnes. Despite problems of land acquisition, 85 per cent of land acquisition had been completed in the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project. All the corridors would be completed by 2019. The total fund requirement has shot up to Rs 80,000 crores. The DFCs could take care of 800 billion tonness-kms of traffic. They would provide guaranteed transit time for freight delivery.” However, it was also revealed that due to the land acquisition problem, the earlier idea of 150 km on both sides of the corridors reserved for industrial location, has been pulled down to just one km on both sides. According to Sharma, Railway Research and Development Organisation (RRDO) had developed capacity to design and make in the country itself, the specialized high capacity and high speed wagons for use on these corridors. The industry-railway expert meet also discussed about the growing opportunity for Indian enterprise in participating in the huge requirements of high technology items in the project in a 'Make in India' mould.
July 25, 2015 | 3:15 pm IST.
to success.