A new beginning

Freight corridors should improve logistics position

The completion of the 1,337-km Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), from Punjab to Bihar, and its expected inauguration on November 1 are being seen as cause for celebration. The opening of this stretch linking Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh with Bihar will certainly make an appreciable difference by more than halving the transit time for freight. Quicker coal deliveries to thermal plants in the north-western states, a perennial problem in the summer when power demand spikes, will be a key gain. The EDFC is part of a wider project that includes a 1,506-km Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, linking Maharashtra and Gujarat with Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Proposed in 2005 (it received Cabinet approval in 2008), it was meant to be a showcase infrastructure project. But even as the inaugural festivities are being readied for the EDFC, several questions have arisen over the project and those could provide salutary lessons for future undertakings of similar magnitude.

The major one is the five-year delay over the original deadline of 2017-18. This delay has seen costs for both legs of the project balloon 54 per cent to Rs 1.24 trillion. The EDFC, parts of which have been operational since 2020, cost Rs 51,000 crore. Part of the reason for the delay is a standard problem for any large infrastructure enterprise in India: Land acquisition. But inefficiencies within the railway system, too, have played a major role. In 2022, for instance, the Comptroller & Auditor General pulled up the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) for cost overruns on account of the slow pace of handing over land to contractors, utility shifting, delays in design, and overhead equipment work, pointing to sheer organisational inefficiency. The abbreviated length of the EDFC has also not been adequately explained. The original EDFC was to extend as far as Dankuni, West Bengal. The current one terminates at Son Nagar, Bihar. Now, the government says the stretch from Son Nagar to West Bengal will terminate at Andul, southeast of Dankuni.

No explanation has been offered for this rerouting, though it is possible that the new terminal makes better logistics sense, given its proximity to Howrah Station and Calcutta Port. This 400-km section, however, will be built by the Indian Railways and not DFCCIL for reasons that have not been stated. Finally, there is the question of the speed at which the trains would run. In 2019, the government had announced that trains on the corridor would run at an average speed of 70 km per hour (kmph), against 26 kmph on Indian Railway lines and a maximum speed of 100 kmph (against 75 kmph). Now officials are referring to an average speed of 50-60 kmph. This is still faster than the railway average but significantly slower than the original project specifications. DFCCIL officials say 95 per cent of the project will be up and running by March 2024. If so, it should make an appreciable difference to the logistics problems that industries routinely face in India. The glacial pace at which railway freight is transported has seen the utility lose share to road transport — it now accounts for just 27 per cent, and the plan is to raise it to 45 per cent by 2030. The operation of the dedicated freight corridor will be the first test of whether it can hit this target.