These corridors are the 1,115-km East Coast Corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada; the East-West corridor which comprises 1,673 km connecting Bhusaval-Nagpur-Kharagpur-Dankuni; the 195-km Rajkharswan-Kalipahari-Andal route; the fourth is the 975-km North South sub-corridor in the Vijayawada-Nagpur-Itarsi route, according to sources.
This next big ticket project will give a massive boost to infrastructural wings of IR. Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors are currently being rapidly built by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India and these are to be commissioned by 2022. The freight corridors are expected to make room for more passenger operations for the transporter, which has set in motion a plan to induct private train operators in select routes.
Under the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), 1,875 km of railway lines are being laid from Ludhiana to Sonnagar and Sonnagar to Dankuni. The laying of a 1,506 km long railway line from Dadri to JNPT is being done under the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and these corridors will be ready by 2022. The Railways have also set this deadline for completion of multi tracking of 1,730 km of high density network.
The corridors are also in line with IR’s need to decongest freight routes. Currently, 34,000 km, amounting to 50 % of the network carries 96 % of the traffic and 11,500 km is still single line. The Railways aim to complete 11,500 km of doubling and 2,500 km of multi tracking by March 2024.
The IR is also targeting completion of 10 port connectivity projects and 51 coal connectivity projects by March 2024. These projects will free up the over-saturated sections of IR, facilitate heavy haul operations, segregation of freight and passenger transportation and allow higher speed of 100 kmph.