Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, reviewed the progress of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation India Limited (DFCCIL).

Shri Goyal directed the DFCCIL management team to take necessary steps to speed up the project to compensate the loss of time due to lockdown during COVID. He also advised the officials to identify the most challenging area and come up with solution in a mission mode.

It is expected that Western Corridor connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai and Eastern Corridor starting from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab) to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal shall be completed by December, 2021.

About DFC

Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects undertaken by the Government of India. The overall cost is pegged at Rs 81,459 crore. DFCCIL has been set up as a special purpose vehicle to undertake planning, development, mobilization of financial resources, construction, maintenance and operation of Dedicated Freight Corridors.

Need for DFC

    • Indian Railways have witnessed higher freight volumes without substantial investment in infrastructure

    • increased axle load

    • reduction of turn-round time of rolling stock

    • reduced unit cost of transportation

    • rationalization of tariffs resulting in improvement in market share and improved operational margins.

DFC highlights

    • The project involves the construction of six freight corridors traversing the entire country.

    • The purpose of the project is to provide a safe and efficient freight transportation system.

    • Freight trains with 1.5 km length, 3660 mm width and 7.1 metre height clearance, a first and only in the world.

    • Double-stack standard shaped containers transported through electric locomotives with trailing loads of 15000 ton and trains with 400 container capacity, a first and only in the world.

    • Bridges & formation to support 32.5 Ton axle load and track loading capacity of 12 t/m, a first at a large scale and travel distance.

    • 800 electric locomotives with 12,000 HP, biggest deployment of very high horse-powered locomotive anywhere in the world.

    • High speed freight trains running at speeds greater than 100 km/h.

    • DFC corridor has no level crossings and uses one of the most advanced construction techniques to improve the quality and speed of construction.

    • DFC will help India achieve the targets it has committed to in the Paris climate accord, by migrating from diesel propelled freight trains and fossil fuel-based road traffic to electricity based railway locomotives.

    • Indian passenger railway network will be able to run semi-high speed and high-speed trains in the existing network as cargo traffic will migrate to DFC.

    • In the first phase the organisation is constructing two freight corridors the Western DFC (1504 Route km) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai (Maharashtra) to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and Eastern DFC (1856 route km) from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal, spanning a total length of 3360 route km.

    • Eastern DFC plan includes

        ◦ construction of 104 bridges

        ◦ 368 road-over-bridges (ROBs)

        ◦ 189 road-under-bridges (RUBs)

        ◦ 21 flyovers

        ◦ reconstruction of nine existing ROBs and the extension of ten existing RUBs.

    • Western DFC plan includes

        ◦ 4km-long tunnel

        ◦ 262 bridges

        ◦ 33 flyovers

        ◦ 505 ROBs

        ◦ 200 RUBs

        ◦ reconstruction of 24 existing ROBs and lengthening ten existing RUBs.

    • The other 4 corridors are

        ◦ East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC), 2,000 km from Kolkata to Mumbai

        ◦ North-South Dedicated Freight Corridor, 2,173 km from Delhi to Chennai

        ◦ East Coast Dedicated Freight Corridor, 1,100 km from Kharagpur to Vijayawada

        ◦ South-West Dedicated Freight Corridor, 890 km from Chennai to Goa

    • Automatic signalling with 2km spacing between signals will be used for both corridors.

    • Traffic control communications on the two corridors will feature an independent OFC system. 

    • A GSM-R communication system will be adopted for mobile train radio communication.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)