Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC)

The Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) are a mega rail transport project being undertaken to increase transportation capacity, reduce unit costs of transportation, and improve service quality.

  • Railways share in freight transportation is about 36 per cent of total goods transported in the country and the Railways aims to increase it substantially.
  • The dedicated freight-only lines are being built along the four key transportation routes – known as the Golden Quadrilateral and connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Howrah and its two diagonals (Delhi – Chennai and Mumbai – Howrah), covering a total of 10,122 km, these corridors carry the heaviest traffic and are highly congested.

The DFCs which are under implementation are -

  • Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, 1,468 km from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai.
  • Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, (Ludhiana, 1,760 km from Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal.

Some more corridors were approved in January 2018 are

  • East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor, 2,000 km-long from Kolkata to Mumbai
  • North-South Dedicated Freight Corridor, 2,173 km long from Delhi to Chennai
  • East Coast Dedicated Freight Corridor, 1,100 km long from Kharagpur to Vijayawada
  • South-West Dedicated Freight Corridor, 890 km-long from Chennai to Goa, this DFC goes through Bangalore-Chennai Industrial Corridor promoted by Japan & India and as a part of Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor promoted by UK & India.

Significance

  • Freight corridor permit the trains to carry higher loads, in a more reliable manner and these lines are also being built to maximize speeds to 100 km an hour, up from the current average freight speed of 20 km an hour.
  • Dedicated Freight Corridors will offer higher transport output with faster transit of freight trains. Running of planned double stack container trains and heavy haul will also add to the carrying capacity.
  • The unit cost of freight transport will substantially be reduced and there will be significant savings in the Logistics cost as well. This would improve the supply chain for the industries/logistics players etc. leading to additional freight volumes and growth of EXIM traffic as well.
  • It will promote Industrial activities in the region by levaraging the Industrial corridors/townships being implemented along the DFC route.
  • Create direct and indirect employment in the project-influence areas.
  • Environment friendly

Challenges

  • It has not been able to meet completion schedules so far due to various reasons, including procedural wrangles, land acquisition, environment clearances and other related issues.

Performance

  • The total length of the Eastern & Western DFC is targeted for completion in the period 2018-2022 (in phases). Total Expenditure upto 31.03.2020 (approx.) is Rs.5,877 crore (including the cost of land). The overall financial progress is 69% (including land) and the overall Physical progress is 71%
  • Out of 2843 km of DFC (1337 km Ludhiana to Sonnagar of EDFC & 1506 km JNPT to Dadri of WDFC), 657 km has already been commissioned upto March 2021.

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