Govt plans five more rail freight corridors

The government is planning to build five new dedicated freight corridors connecting cities in different parts of the country to enhance Railways' transportation capacity.

Eastern dedicated freight corridors (1,839 km) connecting Dankuni near Kolkata with Ludhiana in Punjab and Western corridor (1,499 km) connecting Jawahar Lal Nehru Port in Mumbai with Dadri/Rewari near Delhi are already being implemented.

"Apart from Eastern and Western DFCs, a feasibility study has also been undertaken on four future freight corridors... A pre-feasibility study of Chennai-Bangalore Freight Corridor is also being proposed," the Economic Survey said today.

The proposed corridors -- East-West Corridor (Kolkata- Mumbai), North-South Corridor (Delhi-Chennai), East Coast Corridor (Kharagpur-Vijayawada) and Southern Corridor (Goa- Chennai) -- are being mulled to increase transportation capacity, reduce unit costs of transportation and improve service quality.

"Out of 10,703 hectres of land to be acquired for the project, 7,768 hectres (73 per cent) have already been awarded under the Railway Amendment Act (RAA) 2008. The Eastern and Western DFC projects are being funded through a mix of bilateral/multilateral loans, gross budgetary support (GBS), and PPP," it said.

Following commissioning of the Eastern and Western dedicated freight corridors (DFCs), the government plans to upgrade the speed of passenger trains to 160-200 kmph on the existing routes.