Building Corridors -
Fuelling Growth - DFC Carrying India
to New Height
India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world and
now ranks as the fourth largest economy. In 1991 India opened its economy and
integrated with global powers. One of the Key drivers of the economy is the
rail transportation network and Indian Railways is one of the biggest rail
networks in the World under single management. The rapid economic growth
averaging at 8.45% per annum for last 10 years has put huge demand on existing
rail infrastructure. The core sector of Indian economy like Power, Coal mining,
steel, cement production, fertilizer, petroleum have great dependence on
railways and in consonance railways sets a target of 1850 million tons of
freight in its 2020 vision document.
To supplement the rapid development
railways have identified its high density freight routes of golden
quadrilateral for line capacity enhancement. The golden quadrilateral which is
just 16% of rail network carries 58% of total freight traffic. A momentous
decision was taken by the Government in 2005 to segregate freight and passenger
business and to construct Dedicated Freight Corridors for movement of freight
trains. In the Year 2006, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India
Limited (DFCCIL) was established and registered as a special purpose vehicle
under the Companies’ Act 1957.
The DFC project is a marvel of Planning, engineering, design and
technology. In the first phase of this mega project, DFCCIL has taken up two corridors
at an estimated cost of Rs 88,000 cr. The Eastern Corridor with
a route length of 1839 km from
Ludhiana (Punjab) to Dankuni (West Bengal) and The Western Corridor with a distance of 1534 km from JNPT
(Mumbai) to Dadri. The Eastern corridor will ease the movement of coal to power
plants, steel, petroleum, fertilizer and food grains while the Western corridor
will cater to achievement
of India’s strategy of transformation to global export hub. The Western
Corridor will also help in domestic movement of industrial production from
western India
to northern part of the country through containers. The preliminary Engineering and Traffic survey for
four more corridors in the next phase has also began and is likely to be
completed within two years.
The prime objectives for building
these dedicated freight corridors are to create additional rail infrastructure
to cater to increased transport demand as well as to reduce unit cost of
transportation. DFC will provide seamless end to end solution to the customers
and segregate freight infrastructure for focused approach on both passenger and
freight business of Railways. To accrue the benefits of DFC, the Government has
started Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Corporation of India which
will industrialised the area along DFC and bring in $100 billion investment to
the region.
Keeping in view future perspective of development of next gen
infrastructure, the DFCC is one of the largest ever infrastructure project
being undertaken by railways since Independence .
Freight corridor envisages long haul operation with trailing loads to increase
from 5000 to 15000 tonnes and container capacity will go up to 400 per train.
The new DFC will be high speed freight corridor increasing the speed from 75 at
present to 100 kmph. For
the first time in the history of Railways history the Mobile
radio communication & GSM based tracking of trains will be used. All these
features make it one of the safest rail systems in our country.
The Dedicated freight corridors are
capable to hold the burden of double stack containers which is its USP and DFC
is the pioneer in operation of double stack containers on electrified routes.
The operation cost is expected to be half as compared to present railway
system.
Availability of land holds the key for
faster construction of Dedicated Freight Corridors. DFC will use about 6000
hectares of available railway land and acquire 10750 hectares of land. Further
the main cities and towns have been bypassed to avoid any inconvenience to the
population due to land acquisition
and other issues. DFCC has
already acquired about 7500 hectares of land and it hopes to complete
acquisition by Dec 2012. Apart from compensation, the rehabilitation package
offered by DFC is unique in a way that it provides for the cost of resettlement
and re-building of assets of effected people. The Eastern and the
Western Freight Corridors passes through nine states, 60 districts and 2500
villages.
The DFC had undertaken detail study on
green house emission to develop a long term low carbon road map which will
enable DFC to generate more carbon foot print and also adopt more energy
efficient and carbon friendly technologies, process and practices. The DFC
project has followed green guidelines to the maximum possible extent and has
used technologies which save energy and recourses as much as possible.
The flow of uninterrupted finance is
the key for this kind of mega projects. The DFCC has made foolproof arrangement
for timely and un interrupted flow of finance as the eastern corridor is
financed by World bank and the entire funding for WDFC is provided by Japan
(JICA).The World Bank has agreed to provide a long term loan of $ 950 million
for 1190 km long Ludhiana-Mughalsarai section and the loan agreement has been
signed in October 2011.The JICA IS providing a loan of 679 billion Yen for
construction of entire Western Dedicated Freight Corridor.
The DFCC project is likely to be a key
driver of Indian Economy and a game changer project. The DFC project
will reduce the transit time to 1/3rd and will bring new State of Art terminals, with improved customer service.The
target for completion of both Eastern and Western Corridor is 2017-18.
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