Indian Railways Dedicated Freight Corridor: First portion to be operational by 2018

The Ministry of Railways on 13 February 2017 announced that the first portion of the Indian Railways Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) between Ateli and Phulera will become operational by March 2018.

This will be a 190-km double track route with a total of 380 km track length which will be under the scrutiny of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL). The Ateli-Phulera section will take over the freight load from the Indian Railways.

Additionally, around 500-600 km of additional track length will be operational by financial year 2018-19.

Key Highlights
• DFCCIL, a special purpose vehicle of the railways, owns the responsibility to develop six Dedicated Freight Corridors across the country.
• These DFCs will transfer a minimum of 70  per cent of the freight carried by the Indian Railways on tracks parallel to DFCs.
• One rack on the DFC will be able to carry 13000 tonnes of load compared with 5000 tonnes carried by racks on the existing railway tracks.
• Out of these six corridors, the Eastern DFC and the Western DFC were taken up on priority basis with funding assistance from World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
• JICA sanctioned Rs 38722 crore loan while World Bank committed to provide USD 2.725 billion for the project.
• Eastern DFC will connect Mughalsarai to Ludhiana, while the Western DFC will run between Dadri and Jawahar Lal Nehru Port.
• The capital expenditure of the project is expected to reach around Rs 10000 crore in the current financial year with the total investments till date reaching to Rs 29760 crore.
• The cost of operations on the DFCs is expected to go up by 40 per cent.
• The average speed in these tracks is also expected to rise threefold to 70-75 km per hour from the current 20-25 km per hour.