Dedicated Railway Freight Corridor Operations to Start ahead of Schedule

Freight Corridor Operations to Start 2 Years Early

Two stretches of the project to start operations in 2014; to cover UP, Bihar, Gujarat & Maharashtra

Two stretches of the dedicated freight corridor project are expected to commence operations by the end of 2014, two years ahead of schedule, top officials said.

The . 77,000-crore dedicated freight corridor project will build new tracks to transport containers and goods and will be able to support speeds of up to 100 km per hour, reducing travel time by a third, and creating one of the world's largest and freight operations built with the latest technology.

The sections that are likely to be completed early include the 120-km stretch between Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh and Sonnagar in Bihar and the 140-km stretch between Surat in Gujarat and Vasai Road in Maharashtra.

 “We have had discussions on this and the government wants the freight corridor to open in stretches,” said a senior official of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCCIL), a special purpose vehicle under the ministry of railways.

Indian Railways financial commissioner Pompa Babbar told ET that the government was open to the idea of running trains on stretches where work gets completed. The entire 3,300-km dedicated rail corridor is divided in two parts — western and eastern. Japanese lending agency JICA will be funding the 1,490-km western corridor stretching from Dadri in Haryana to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT). On the other hand, World Bank and the railways (from its internal accruals) would provide financing for the 1,800-km eastern corridor.

 The DFCCIL official said that the Indian Railways must take the decision on funding some of the stretches of the freight corridor, as ‘there is a time-lag due to borrowing from the multilateral borrowing agencies’. Explaining this, the official said that the funding agency had its own plans and every step from inviting pre-qualification bids to calling the final bids would be additionally examined by these agencies, thus leading to considerable delay.

“Small stretches of corridors on eastern or western corridors will yield little revenues, as full potential traffic will not be realised,” said Abhaya Agarwal, executive director and public-private partnership leader at Ernst and Young. Although the DFCCIL official welcomed the idea of part-commissioning, he reiterated that it may not result in significant revenue generation. However, a freight train running on these small stretches being commissioned would be running at much lower speeds. Land acquisition for both the phases of the mega-project is likely to be completed by December 2012.

On Track

• One of the sections that is likely be completed early includes the 120-km stretch between Mughalsari in UP and Sonnagar in Bihar

• The other section covers 140 kms between Surat in Gujarat and Vasai Road in Maharashtra

• The government is open to the idea of running trains on stretches where work gets completed

Source: Economic Times