Govt may shelve Rs 2-trillion freight corridor plan

The move comes in the wake of the railways having to hard-sell the recently commissioned #east and #west #Freight-corridors to potential bulk customers, and the issues that have cropped up of the network planning of these projects

The #government is likely to abandon the plan to set up three more dedicated freight corridors (#DFCs) – #EastCoast, #EastWest and #NorthSouth – at an estimated combined cost of Rs 2 trillion. The Centre may instead opt for a few #commodity-specific rail networks, a senior railway official told on condition of anonymity.

The move comes in the wake of the railways having to hard-sell the recently commissioned east and west freight corridors to potential bulk customers, and the issues that have cropped up of the network planning of these projects. The #capacity utilisation of the two corridors remain low.

The rethink on the three additional #DFCs is despite the fact that the #RailwayBoard has recently received the detailed project reports for two or them (East Coast and North-South), and the #DPR on the third one – East-West – is expected anytime soon.
According to the source, members of the railways board and the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (#DFCCL) have already met once to discuss DPRs.

“The reports for new DFCs have been submitted to the #Railway-ministry for further approvals, but it is likely that the #railways will not pursue the proposed corridors. Instead, the focus will be on building commodity-based corridors as announced by the #finance minister,” said the official.

In her interim #Budget speech, finance minister #NirmalaSitharaman had announced major railway corridor projects. These are exclusive corridors for specific commodities – #energy, #mineral and #cement – and for specific purposes like port connectivity, and high-traffic density.

“The projects have been identified under the #PMGatiShakti for enabling multi-modal connectivity. Together with DFCs, these three #economic corridor programmes will accelerate our #GDP growth and reduce logistic costs,” #Sitharaman had said recently.

The announcement in the last Budget was, however, seen as a deviation by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s previous plan in this regard. In her Budget 2021-22 speech, Sitharaman had announced generic East Coast, East-West and North-South corridors.

If implemented, these three proposed corridors would have a combined length of 4,315 kms. As per DPRs, the 1,078-km East Coast corridor will connect #Kharagpur to #Vijaywada, and 931-km North-South corridor will connect #Itarasi to #Vijaywada.

The third East-West corridor is divided into two sub-corridors: 2,106-km #Palghar to #Dankuni section and 200-km #Rajkharswan to #Andal section. The proposed corridors aim to slash the transit time of freight trains, bring down the overall #logistics costs, and further enhance the railways’ share in the total #cargo movement.

“The commodity-specific corridors make more sense because there will be existing customers for them. The #DFCCIL has been hard selling the eastern and #western dedicated freight corridors (#WDFC).. there are issues with the network planning of these projects,” said the official.

The capacity utilisation levels of the 1,337-km #EDFC and 1,506-km #WDFC remain fairly low. For instance, the fully-completed EDFC has a capacity to run 120 trains each way per day but due to low demand, just about 75-80 trains are being operated at the moment. EDFC connects power plants in the northern states of #UP, #Delhi, #Haryana, #Punjab and parts of #Rajasthan with #Eastern coal fields. Traffic on EDFC also comprises finished steel, food grains, cement, fertilisers and limestone.

Railway Ministry spotlights #Maharashtra’s scenic rail route via #BhorGhat in latest tweet – Take a look WDFC, which still has a 109-km stretch under construction, is running just 40-45 trains per day (each way) against the capacity of 120 trains. This stretch is used primarily for export-import #container traffic and transporting milk from #Gujarat to northern India.

Courtesy: The Financial Express: “Govt may shelve Rs 2-trillion freight corridor plan”

Pic-Top: The capacity utilisation of the two corridors remain low. (Image/X)