The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the 351-km New Bhaupur- New Khurja section and the Operation Control Centre of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor.

He said the Government is focusing on the five wheels of highways, railways, airways, waterways and i-ways and the inauguration of a large section of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is a big step in this direction.

Highlights

    • The 1,800-km Easter Dedicated Freight Corridor project will connect north India to the eastern part of the country through a dedicated freight railway tracks. 

    • The new section, located in Uttar Pradesh, has been built at a cost of Rs 5,750 crore. 

    • It is dedicated only to freight trains, which will run at an average speed of 75 km per hour. Usually, freight trains run at an average speed of about 25 km per hour.

    • The corridor will originate at Ludhiana in Punjab and culminate at Dankuni in West Bengal. 

    • Of the nearly 1,800-km stretch, about 1,000 km will pass through Uttar Pradesh alone.

    • In UP, the 351-km project, built by the Tata Projects Ltd, will start from Khurja in Aligarh and cover districts such as Hathras, Firozabad and Etawah. It will end at Bhaupur, which is in Kanpur Dehat.

    • Thus, this section is expected to help decongest the Kanpur-Delhi main railway line.

About Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor

    • The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) project is part of India’s Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) programme, which aims to create one of the world’s biggest cargo operations.

    • The EDFC project involves the construction of a 1,839km-long freight line extending from Ludhiana in the Indian state of Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal.

    • The project is being implemented by Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), a special purpose vehicle established by the Ministry of Indian Railways for the construction, operation and maintenance of the dedicated freight corridors.

    • DFCCIL is also responsible for planning, development, mobilisation of financial resources and operation of the DFCs.

    • The main objective of the project is to support freight movement on the Eastern Corridor, which starts in West Bengal, and passes through the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Haryana before finally ending at Punjab.

    • The project will ease congestion in the existing railway system, reduce travel time for passenger trains, and create additional rail transport and freight capacities.

    • Work on EDFC-1 commenced in March 2013, while the entire project is scheduled for completion in 2020-21.

    • The Eastern corridor is backed up by the World Bank, which aims to achieve integration, transformation and inclusion through the project by improving transport connectivity and domestic market integration for freight consigning industries in India.

    • The project will benefit groups including power and heavy manufacturing industries, which rely on railways for transporting commodities to markets and ports, as well as community groups, residents and farmers along the corridor.

    • The dedicated corridor will expedite the movement of coal from eastern coal fields to power plants in the western states of India.

    • At the same time, it will speed up the transport of cement, fertilisers and limestone from the state of Rajasthan to steel plants in the east.

    • The line will comprise a 1,409km electrified double-track line between Dankuni in West Bengal and Khurja in UP, as well as a 447km single-track line stopping at Ludhiana, Khurja, Dadri and Haryana.

    • EDFC-1, includes a 343km double-track line between Khurja and Kanpur.

    • EDFC-2 will be a 393km-long double-track line between Kanpur and Mughal Sarai.

    • EDFC-3, the last section, will be a single-track line between Ludhiana, Khurja and Dadri that will stretch over a length of 397km.

    • The line will be constructed as a double-line ballasted track laid on concrete sleepers and will be electrified with two 25kV AC, as well as 50Hz power generated from an overhead catenary system.

    • It will be capable of operating trains moving at 100km/h, and feature automatic block signalling, modern telecommunication, train radio and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) control systems.

    • The World Bank has agreed to finance approximately 1,100km of the total length of the EDFC in three phases. Accordingly, it released the first loan of $975m in October 2011 for the Khurja-Kanpur section.

    • A second loan of $1.1bn was released in December 2014 for the Kanpur-Mughalsarai section, while a third loan of $650m was sanctioned in June 2015.

    • The Indian Ministry of Railways is providing equity funding of $544m for the section from Mughalsarai to Sonnagar.

    • One of the main benefits of the EDFC project is the significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

    • The corridor is expected to generate 10.48Mt of greenhouse emissions up to 2041-2042 compared to a predicted 23.29Mt of GHG in its absence, and will therefore contribute to a 55% reduction of emissions.

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