WB approves $650 mn loan for Eastern Freight Corridor

The World Bank today approved USD 650 million towards loans for the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor to facilitate faster and more efficient movement of goods between northern and eastern parts of India.
The Eastern Corridor is 1,840 km long and extends from Ludhiana to Kolkata.
"The World Bank is supporting the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) as a series of projects in which three sections will be delivered sequentially, but with considerable overlap in their construction schedules," the Bank said in a statement.
This is the third loan by the multilateral lending agency towards EDFC and will be utilised to build the 401-km Ludhiana-Khurja section in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.

The project is expected to help raise capacity of these freight-only lines and develop institutional capacity of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India to build and maintain infrastructure network, it added.
"Implementing the Dedicated Freight Corridor programme will provide India the opportunity to create one of the world's largest freight operations. The corridor, which will pass through states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, will benefit from the new rail infrastructure, bringing jobs and much-needed development to some of India's poorest regions," World Bank Country Director (India) Onno Ruhl said.

The first loan of USD 975 million was approved by the World Bank board in May 2011 and the second one of USD 1.1 billion in April 2014.

Dedicated freight corridors are seen as instrumental in increasing railway transportation capacity by building high-capacity, high-speed dedicated freight corridors along the Golden Quadrilateral.
The loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), an arm of World Bank, has a 7-year grace period and a maturity of 22 years.