Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 29, 2020 inaugurated a 351-km section between Khurja and Bhaupur in Uttar Pradesh for commercial operations of the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC).
- The Prime Minister also dedicated to the nation a state-of-the-art Operation Control Centre in Prayagraj.
About Dedicated Freight Corridors
- Initially 2 Dedicated Freight Corridors were planned. Eastern dedicated Freight corridor and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor.
- The 2,843-km corridors is being built at a cost of Rs 5,750 crore through a loan from World Bank (Eastern Corridor) and the funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Western Corridor).
- Eastern dedicated Freight corridor: The 1,839-km Eastern dedicated Freight corridor (EDFC) starts at Sohnewal (Ludhiana) in Punjab and ends at Dankuni in West Bengal. This route has coal mines, Thermal power plants and industrial cities. Feeder routes are also being made for these.
- Western Dedicated Freight Corridor: The 1,500-km Western Dedicated Freight Corridor starts from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to JNPT in Mumbai. In this corridor, ports like Mundra, Kandla, Pipavav, Dawri and Hazira would be served through feeder routes.
- The Industrial corridor of Delhi-Mumbai and Amritsar-Kolkata are being developed around both these Freight Corridor. Similarly North to south and East to west Corridors are also being planned.
Benefits:
- Around 70 percent 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.
- The new stations in the newly inaugurated 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.
- 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.
- The Prime Minister said that since both Passenger trains and Goods trains ply on the same track, the speed of the goods train is slow. When the speed of the goods train is slow, and there is interruption in place, obviously the cost of transportation will be high. Being expensive, our products lose the competition in our markets of the country as well as abroad. The Dedicated Freight Corridor was planned to change this situation.
- With such dedicated freight corridors problems of delayed passenger trains would be resolved. Due to this speed of the freight train also would increase 3 times and would be able to carry double the volume of goods.
- When goods trains arrive on time the cost of Logistics Network would be cheaper. When goods will be cheaper, it would benefit exports.
- It would create a better atmosphere, Ease of Doing business would increase and India would become an attractive place to invest and many new opportunities for self-employment will also be created.
(Source: PIB and Indian Express)
