 "freight corridors")
One of the key infrastructure projects which received a push from Prime Minister Narendra Modi — the 1,337-kilometre (km) Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Punjab to Bihar — has achieved completion ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The project is now ready for commissioning, and operations on the full corridor are likely to begin on November 1, according to Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCC) Managing Director R K Jain.
"The first section of EDFC was inaugurated in December 2020. Three years later, we have completed the entire corridor," Jain said at a press conference. "Thermal power plants in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and partly Rajasthan will benefit from the corridor as it will cater largely to coal traffic."
Senior executives present at the conference said the corridor was completed at a cost of Rs 55,000 crore, much higher than the latest approved cost. "Most of the cost escalation was on account of land acquisition and changes in the scope of the project," Jain said.
Freight corridors are special tracks made for goods trains, to decongest the railway network and ensure faster movement of goods. Due to the lack of passenger traffic, dedicated freight corridors offer an average speed of 50-60 kmph, which is almost thrice that of regular railway tracks.
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Currently, 140 trains are running on several sections of the EDFC, which has been operational in parts since 2020, and the capacity of the tracks is to run 250 trains every day.
Freight trains from Sonnagar to Dadri (consisting of the congested Mughalsarai section) used to take 35-50 hours. These will now take 18-20 hours with the completion of EDFC.
The corridor is expected to be a vital cog in the Centre's plan to avert future coal crises by optimising the transportation network. The cost of the two corridors, after overruns of 54 per cent, has risen to Rs 1.24 trillion, said Jain. A proposal for the revised costs was sent to the Union Cabinet.
A saga of delays
In 2015, the Cabinet had approved the revised cost estimate of the two freight corridors at Rs 81,459 crore. Now, the latest revision includes Rs 21,846 crore for land acquisition and Rs 1.02 trillion in construction and other costs.
While the EDFC project was approved more than 15 years ago, it faced several hurdles related to land acquisitions, delay in award of contracts, appointing consultants, loan approvals, and more recently the outbreak of Covid-19. These delayed the implementation of the project and led to cost escalation.
Earlier, the deadline for the completion of the project was 2017-18.
The 153 million tonnes of traffic that was expected to be carried by EDFC in 2021-22, is likely to increase to 251 million tonnes by 2036-37. Similarly, the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor was expected to carry 161 million tonnes of traffic in 2021-22; this will increase to 284 million tonnes during the same period.
