Last mile connectivity & feeder routes of DFCs should be completed simultaneously: Goyal

Mr Piyush Goyal, Minister for Railways and Commerce & Industry, this week again reviewed the progress of various sections under completion of the Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC), both the East and West sections.

‌Railway officials gave inputs about the progress being made in all the sections and also on some of the challenges being faced in getting the work completed, said a release.

The Minister stressed that last mile connectivity and feeder routes need to be completed simultaneously so as to ensure delivery of maximum benefits from the DFCs. He said that this aspect of project development needs to be monitored sincerely.

He also said that in order to ensure the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) campaign gets a boost, indigenisation of all container traffic on the DFCs needs to be promoted on mission mode. Domestic industry in India is quiet capable of manufacturing such containers, he emphasised.

The Indian Railways’ dedicated freight corridors project intends to provide exclusive movement at fast speeds for goods trains. In the first phase, DFCCIL is constructing the Western DFC (1,504 route km) and the Eastern DFC (1,856 route km including the PPP Sonnagar-Dankuni section). The DFCs are seen as a game changer in the economic development of the country, highlighted a release.

The EDFC, starting from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab), will pass through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal. The Western Corridor, connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai, will traverse through the states of UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra of WDFC & EDFC (excluding the Sonnagar-Dankuni PPP section). 2,800 route km will be commissioned by June 2022.

The Prime Minister had recently dedicated two sections of the DFCs on the Eastern and Western corridors to the nation – the Rewari-Madar section on WDFC and the New Khurja-New Bhaupur section on EDFC, the release added.