By March this year, Indian Railways will add 350 kilometre to 400 kilometre of Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal said. Goyal’s announcement has come after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently inaugurated 306-kilometre long Rewari-Madar section of the Western DFC and 351 kilometre long New Bhaupur-New Khurja section of Eastern DFC.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL), a PSU under the Ministry of Railways is constructing the 1504 kilometre long Western DFC and 1856 kilometre long Eastern DFC.
“In India, we 200 billion dollar logistics ecosystem, a good part of that is supported by Indian Railways where we are making massive efforts to bring down the cost of logistics to expand the scope of service that Indian Railways provides. By March, we will have 350-400 km of DFCs ready,” Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said.
“These are freight corridors which only carry freight traffic therefore adding the speed exponentially, and bringing down the cost while adding huge capacity to be able to transport volume goods as well as a small parcel. Indian Railways is strengthening logistics ecosystem. PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the first 650 km of dedicated freight corridor, on both, the Eastern and the Western front,” Piyush Goyal said.
Indian Railways is making dedicated freight corridors to provide exclusive movement on fast speeds for goods trains. Dedicated Freight corridor is being seen as a game-changer in Economic Development of India, Indian Railways has said.
The Eastern DFC starting from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab) will pass through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal. The Western DFC starts from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai will traverse through the states of UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra of WDFC. The 2800 kilometre route is likely to be commissioned by June 2022, the Ministry of Railways stated.