Dedicated Freight Corridor

  • The DFC consists of two arms. The section launched on Tuesday is part of the 1,839-km Eastern DFC that starts at Sohnewal (Ludhiana) in Punjab and ends at Dankuni in West Bengal. 
  • The other arm is the around 1,500-km Western DFC from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to JNPT in Mumbai, touching all major ports along the way.
  • The 351-km section stretches between Khurja, the 12th stop after Sohnewal in the North, to New Bhaupur, near Kanpur. Other stretches are Sohnewal to Khurja (365 km), Bhaupur to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay (Mughalsarai) (400 km), then to Sonnagar in West Bengal (137 km), then to Dankuni via Gomoh in Jharkhand (538 km).
  • There is also a section under construction between Dadri and Khurja to connect the Eastern and Western arms

Need for Dedicated Freight Corridor Project:

  • The Indian Railways’ quadrilateral linking the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Howrah, commonly known as the Golden Quadrilateral; and its two diagonals (Delhi-Chennai and Mumbai-Howrah), adding up to a total route length of 10,122 km comprising of 16% of the route carried more than 52% of the passenger traffic and 58% of revenue earning freight traffic of IR.
  • The existing trunk routes of Howrah-Delhi on the Eastern Corridor and Mumbai-Delhi on the Western Corridor were highly saturated, line capacity utilization varying between 115% to 150%. 
  • Railways lost the share in freight traffic from 83% in 1950-51 to 35% in 2011-12. Not only this, the National highways along these corridors comprising 0.5% of the road network carried almost 40% of the road freight.

    The surging power needs requiring heavy coal movement, booming infrastructure construction and growing international trade led to the conception of the Dedicated Freight Corridors along the Eastern and Western Routes, to begin with.

  • Recently, three new corridors namely East West, East Coast and North South sub corridorsanctioned for DPR preparation.

Green Initiative:

  • DFCCIL will decongest already saturated road network & promote shifting of freight transport to more efficient rail transport. 
  • This shift is expected to offer significant reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in transport sector in India.
  • It is expected that DFC will save more than 450 million ton of CO2 in first 30 years of operation (Assessment based on Ernst & Young study).

Why is it important?

  • Around 70% of the freight trains currently running on the Indian Railway network are slated to shift to the freight corridors, leaving the paths open for more passenger trains.
  • Built at a cost of Rs 5,750 crore through a loan from World Bank (which is funding a majority of the EDFC; the WDFC is being funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency), the new stations in this section are Bhaupur, Kanchausi, Achalda, Ekdil, Bhadan, Makhanpur, Tundla, Hathras, Daudkan and Khurja. 
  • This section passes through Kanpur Dehat, Auraiya, Etawah, Firozabad, Hathras, Aligarh and Bulandshahr districts in Uttar Pradesh.
  • This is like building an entire railway network from scratch, independent of Indian Railways. All the installations are new.
  • Including the stations, and that’s why the names of a majority of its stations are prefixed with ‘New’, such as New Bhaupur, New Khurja etc.
  • Tracks on DFC are designed to carry heavier loads than most of Indian Railways. DFC will get track access charge from the parent Indian Railways, and also generate its own freight business.

Timelines:

April 2005 Project announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister & Hon’ble Minister for Railways
Feb 2006 CCEA gave in-principle approval for the project based on the RITES Report
Oct 2006 Incorporation of DFCCIL (Shedule”A”) Government Company, as SPV
Nov 2007 CCEA gave in-principle approval along with permission for undertaking preliminary works including land acquisition
Feb 2008 CCEA approved Eastern & Western DFC Corridors and authorized expenditure up to Rs.28,181 crore with the direction to finalize funding arrangements
Sept 2009 Cabinet approved JICA loan for WDFC along with STEP loan conditionalities
Mar 2010 JICA Loan Agreement for JPY 90 billion (Rs.5100 crores) signed for Western Corridor Phase-I
Oct 2011 Loan Agreement with World Bank for USD 975 Million (Rs.5850 crores) signed for EDFC-1 (Khurja-Bhaupur)
Jan 2013 First Civil, System & Track Contract (Bhaupur – Khurja) – EDFC worth Rs.3267.54 crores awarded
Mar 2013 JICA Loan Agreement for WDFC Phase-II : 1st Tranche amounting JPY 136 billion (Rs.7750 crores) signed
June 2013 Civil contract for Rewari-Palanpur section (WDFC) awarded
Feb 2014 Concession Agreement between DFCCIL & MoR signed
Dec 2014 Loan agreement with World Bank loan of USD 1100 million signed (EDFC-2)
June 2015 World Bank loan of USD 650 million sanctioned (EDFC-3)
June 2015 Cost estimate of Rs. 81,459 Crores approved by CCEA
Oct 2019 Trial Run started in Khurja-Bhadan section (194 Km) of EDFC
Dec 2019 Trial Run started in Rewari-Madar section (306 Km) of WDFC

 

 

Way Forward:

  • There are certain firsts for this section. For instance, 68 existing level crossings have been eliminated to augment speed, the only major section on Indian Railways that is free from any permanent or temporary speed restrictions. 
  • This in a way sets the bar for rest of the DFC to also make stretches free from speed restrictions, or “cautions” as they are termed in Railways.
  • Freight trains usually suffer from unpredictable running times and low speeds of around 25 km per hour. But on this new section they can run at 50-60 kph.
  • This section will also catch the freight traffic originating from key centres such as Kanpur Dehat, Aurayia, Etawah, Firozabad, Hathras, Aligarh and Bulandshahr. 
  • The existing industrial areas of Aligarh, Khuja, Firozabad, Agra and Bhaupur will become major growth centres of the area, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation projects in its business development plan.
  • These areas are agriculture hubs producing potato, paddy and maize. “The agricultural produce will get a pan-India market because of cheaper and faster DFC connectivity.
  • New Makhanpur (Firozabad) and New Daudkhan (Aligarh) will be opened as common user terminals aimed at local farmers in sending their produce to the larger markets.

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