Of the three planned freight corridors, East-coast corridor is on the priority for approval: DFCCIL MD
As the last leg of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) — Vaitarna to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal — is nearing completion, the Dedicated freight corridor corporation of India limited (DFCCIL) is eyeing for the approval of new dedicated freight corridor projects and development of more Gati Shakti Multimodal terminals.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Heavy Haul Seminar 2025 at Bharat Mandapam, Praveen Kumar, Managing Director, DFCCIL on Friday said the company will prioritise the East-coast corridor — Kharagpur in West Bengal to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh — for approval, which is one of the three newly proposed corridors whose Detailed Project Report was submitted to the Ministry of Railways, and awaits sanction.
'The Ministry of Railways will take decisions on these projects. For sanctioning of these projects, we will prioritize the East-coast corridor, which runs from Kharagpur in West Bengal to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. After that, the decision on the approval of the East-West corridor (Kharagpur to Palghar) and the North-South corridor (Itarsi to Vijayawada) may be taken. It will require an investment of 4.5 lakh crore for these three corridors,' said Kumar.
The last stretch of the 1,506 km long WDFC, from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to JNPT (Navi Mumbai) will be commissioned by December, Kumar added. The 1,856 km long Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor from Ludhiana (Punjab) to Dakuni (West Bengal), is fully operational.
'Because of these two corridors the speed of trains have increased to about 45 to 50 km/h. While the speed of trains on other Indian Railways networks is 20-25km/h. Though our section and locomotives are capable of running 100 kmph, the speed of rolling stock (wagon) is limited. Western corridor has mostly container traffic and the Eastern corridor has mostly coal traffic. Because of deployment of new technology on the corridor, the transit time has reduced by almost 50 percent. The thermal power plants have also reduced their inventory because of trustworthy freight operation on these corridors,' said Kumar to The Indian Express.
He further said that because freight has shifted to the DFCC network, the passenger service has also improved.
'The punctuality of adjoining railways such as North Central Railway (NCR), North Western Railway (NWR), Northern Railway, Eastern Railway and East Central Railway (ECR) has improved because there is no pressure for running freight trains on their network. Currently, we are running around 400 trains on DFCC and the potential is to run 480 trains once the JNPT is connected. Our total network is 4 percent of Indian Railways and we carry 13 percent of total Gross tonne-kilometres (GTKM),' said DFCCIL MD.
Praveen Kumar also said that DFCCIL is taking up many business development projects and establishing Gati Shakti Multi-Modal terminal in a big way.
'We have commissioned four terminals so far and in this financial year, we are planning to commission six more terminals. We have a special scheme called Truck on Train (TOT). We have started carrying milk trucks from Palanpur in Gujarat to Rewari in Haryana. It will provide last mile connectivity. This traffic was earlier going on Highways,' said Kumar.
Talking about the purpose of the seminar, MD Kumar said that experts from different countries shared technologies developed in the heavy haul sector and it will be implemented in DFCC to improve efficiency of the network.
Dheeraj Mishra is a Principal correspondent with The Indian Express, Business Bureau. He covers India's two key ministries- Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. He frequently uses the Right to Information (RTI) Act for his stories, which have resulted in many impactful reports. ... Read More
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