PM Modi to inaugurate ‘New Bhaupur-New Khurja’ section of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor on Tuesday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the ‘New Bhaupur-New Khurja’ section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor on December 29 via video conferencing. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said he will also inaugurate the EDFC’s operation control centre at Prayagraj during the event.

The 351-km ‘New Bhaupur-New Khurja section’ of the EDFC is situated in Uttar Pradesh and has been built at a cost of Rs 5,750 crore, it said.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India was set up by the government to decongest railway network, ensure faster movement of goods, increase the national carrier’s freight capacity network and reduce overall logistics cost for companies.

“Decongestion of existing Kanpur-Delhi mainline, presently, the Kanpur (Bhaupur) Khurja section is among the most congested sections of Indian Railways and line capacity utilisation is more than 150 percent.

With the release of freight trains to DFC route, Indian Railways section will be able to run faster and punctual trains and will get time to do routine maintenance which was earlier a daunting challenge,” the ministry said, adding that average speed of goods train will increase up to 60-70 kmph from 25-30 kmph now.

In the first phase, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India is constructing the Western and Eastern DFC. The Eastern freight corridor will start from Sahnewal near Ludhiana, Punjab will pass through Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal. The Western corridor will connect Dadri, Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), Mumbai and will traverse through UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Three more DFCs are also in pipeline