Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC):

Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC):

• Ministry of Railways is executing the work of construction of two dedicated freight corridors namely Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors (EDFC & WDFC) to augment the rail transport capacity along above routes to meet the growing need of the economy and facilitate faster evacuation of freight traffic.

What is Dedicated Freight Corridor?

• It is a high speed and high capacity railway corridor that is exclusively meant for the transportation of freight, or in other words, goods and commodities.
• DFC involves the seamless integration of better infrastructure and state of the art technology.

The salient features of DFC are as under:

1. Maximum permissible Speed - 100Kmph
2. Long haul and Higher Trailing load - upto 13000 tonnes per train
3. Double stack trains on WDFC
4. Efficient handling and value added services at freight terminals of DFC.
5. Enhanced axle load of 25 tonnes
6. Higher maximum moving dimension of Wagons
7. Automatic Signalling with Mobile Train Radio communication
8. Overall enhanced throughput

DFC consists of two arms:

1. Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC)
2. Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC)

Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC):

• It starts at Sahnewal (Ludhiana) in Punjab and ends at Dankuni in West Bengal.
• The EDFC route has coal mines, thermal power plants and industrial cities. Feeder routes are also being made for these.
• The EDFC route covers Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal
• The World Bank is funding a majority of the EDFC.
• The 351-km-long ‘New Bhaupur-New Khurja section’ will decongest the existing Kanpur-Delhi main line and double the speed of freight trains from 25 kmph to 75 kmph.

Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC):

• The other arm is the around 1,500-km WDFC from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai, touching all major ports along the way.
• The WDFC covers Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
• It is being funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
• Connecting Link for Eastern and Western Arm: It is under construction between Dadri and Khurja.
• The industrial corridor of Delhi-Mumbai and Amritsar-Kolkata are also being developed around both these DFCs.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd.

• DFCCIL under the Ministry of Railways is a special purpose vehicle tasked with planning and completion of 3,306 kms of DFCs.
• It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU).
• It engages in the planning and development, deployment of monetary resources, building, upkeep, and the operation of the DFCs.

Benefits of Dedicated Freight Corridors:

• 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. in DFC’s catchment areas leading to additional freight volumes and growth of EXIM traffic as well.
• The above advantages of DFC will promote Industrial activities in the region by levaraging the Industrial corridors/townships being implemented along the DFC route.
• Development of New Freight terminals, Multimodal Logistics parks and Inland Container Depots along both Eastern and Western DFC are in different stages of implementation.

Recent News: New Freight Corridor

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the New Rewari-New Madar section of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and flagged off the world’s first 1.5-km-long electrified double stack long haul container train.
• Mr. Modi said the project was part of the mission to modernise the country’s infrastructure and was being seen as a game changer for the India of 21st century.
• The section, which became operational after a hard work of five to six years, would be beneficial to farmers, industrialists and businessmen in the National Capital Region, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Significance

• The corridor would lead to the development of growth centres and points in several cities, creation of job opportunities and conditions attracting more investments.
• It would give a new fillip to the local industries and manufacturing units by providing them faster and cheaper access to the national and international markets.
• They would get easy access to the ports in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
• In all, 133 railway stations in nine States would be impacted by the Dedicated Freight Corridor.
• New multi-model logistic parks, freight terminals, container depots/terminals and parcel hubs would be developed at these places.
• It would not only benefit villages, farmers, the poor and the small businesses, but also attract big manufacturers, he said.
• With the launch of the double stack long haul container train between New Ateli in Haryana and New Kishanganj in Rajasthan, India had also entered the club of nations with such high capabilities.

Northeast link

• Given the rapid infrastructural expansion, all the Northeast State capitals would soon be linked to the national rail network. The work of indigenously developing high-speed tracks was also under way.
• Earlier, Mr. Modi listed several initiatives, including a digital payment of Rs.18,000 crore to farmers under the direct benefit transfer scheme, taken by the government in the past couple of weeks, to highlight the speed with which important projects were being implemented despite the COVID-19 induced crisis.