The ambitious East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) that would pass through Nagpur is finally on the track as Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) has initiated work related to acquisition of land for the project. The Corporation, a public sector unit of Ministry of Railways, has notified intention to acquire land parcels on New Gondia to New Uslapur section on the Mumbai-Howrah route, one of the major commercial operational routes of Indian Railways. This is about 283 kms section from where the work on 2000-2300 km dedicated freight network is going to be initiated and estimated timeline is set at about 6 years from start of land acquisition, and it is going to be supervised by Raipur office under Chief General Manager (CGM). Along side acquisition, DFCCIL would also put in place demarcation by putting in pillars making its boundary.

 

The project that is going to stretch from Surat in West to Dankuni in West Bengal aims to provide port connectivity to market, ensuring superfast movement of goods. Already two DFCs have become functional, one is the Western freight corridor and other is the Eastern corridor. Uslapur Station is near Bilaspur, it houses headquarters of South East Central Railway (SECR), it leads in coal loading over Indian Railways.

 

The project is aimed at improving the efficiency of logistics operations in the country, as the freight trains on the route would move at a speed of 100 km/hr. In the first phase zeroing upon the section on in Bilaspur Zone of Indian Railways is significant as this is where laying of tracks would face major challenge during execution of work, pointed out the officials familiar with the project. The said section is also home to one of the ghat section, the 11 km Salekasa-Darekasa, it has steep gradients and sharp curves in Satpura range foothills. As per information, the ghat section has 1 in 150 rising/falling gradient which makes train operation quite challenging. The East-West corridor would pass through states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. As of date the cost of new freight corridor is pegged at over Rs one lakh crore. Each of the intermediate section on the route has quite potential for goods loading, said the officials. As per the policy decision, the East-West DFC is going to be executed on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode by leveraging Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM). Going by the past experience to ensure speedier completion, DFCCIL may opt for 10 to 12 smaller plus investor-friendly packages for the bidders. To speed-up and keep an eye on land acquisition a sub-office is opened temporarily in the city and an officer is also posted to head the same. The project was announced in Railway Budget in 2016-17.

 

In the initial plan, the East-West DFC was proposed between Dankuni to Palghar in Maharashtra. But thereafter Indian Railways went for realignment and during last budget session, the East-West corridor was altered to include Surat. Since the project cost and its span is quite big, Railways is taking-up one DFC after another to make them fully functional before opting for taking up construction of new links. The DFC link is expected to take off the load on operational lines of Indian Railways that are overloading and over stretched. As is the practice, the good rakes get stranded on current routes of Indian Railways as priority is accorded for movement of passenger carrying trains. This results in delayed reaching of goods rake as they do not run as per time table. Therefore, DFC thought came into being and history was made when double stack containers were run on existing corridor rather than laying additional lines for meeting higher demand.