Indian Railways intends to operationalise over 1,300 route km of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) by the end of this year.
So far, a total of 1,150 route kilometres (RKM) of the Eastern DFC has been commissioned, which is around 86 per cent of the total project and work is under way on the remaining 187 route kilometres.
Quoting a senior Railway Board member, a Businessline report said, “The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor alignment is expected to be operational by this year-end”.
Further, on 2 August, Indian Railways completed the track linking work on the last leg of Eastern DFC between Sonnagar and Ludhiana section. Upon commissioning, the entire 1,337 RKM of EDFC will provide seamless connectivity to freight trains.
The EDFC is one of the two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), being built by the railways to facilitate faster evacuation of freight traffic, the other being Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC).
The EDFC is targeted at coal-bearing regions, movement of finished steel, food grains, cement, fertilisers, limestone from Rajasthan to steel plants in the east, and general goods.
It starts from Sahnewal near Ludhiana in Punjab, crosses through two other states — Uttar Pradesh and Haryana — and terminates at Sonnagar in Bihar.
As part of this freight corridor, another 538 route kilometres between Sonnagar in Bihar and West Bengal’s Dankuni is proposed to be developed.
However, after several attempts at finding a private player to build and maintain the infrastructure, the Railway Board is now planning to construct the 371-km stretch between Sonnagar and New Andal through a railway organisation itself.
The EDFC will meet the WDFC at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh.
The 1,506-km-long WDFC will connect Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) Terminal in Maharashtra. It passes through Haryana (177 km), Rajasthan (565 km), Gujarat (565 km) and Maharashtra (177 km), in addition to UP.
A total of 1,046 km of WDFC has already been commissioned. The entire alignment, except the 102 km last mile rail link between Vaitarna near Palghar and JNPT in Maharashtra, is expected to be operational by this year-end, said the Businessline report.