Nearly 86 Per Cent Of Eastern DFC Commissioned, Railways Planning To Commence Operation On Entire Corridor By Year End

Indian Railways intends to operationalise over 1,300 route km of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) by the end of this year.

So far, a total of 1,150 route kilometres (RKM) of the Eastern DFC has been commissioned, which is around 86 per cent of the total project and work is under way on the remaining 187 route kilometres.

Quoting a senior Railway Board member, a Businessline report said, “The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor alignment is expected to be operational by this year-end".

The EDFC is one of the two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), being built by the railways to facilitate faster evacuation of freight traffic, the other being Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC).

The EDFC is targeted at coal-bearing regions, movement of finished steel, food grains, cement, fertilisers, limestone from Rajasthan to steel plants in the east, and general goods.

It starts from Sahnewal near Ludhiana in Punjab, crosses through two other states — Uttar Pradesh and Haryana — and terminates at Sonnagar in Bihar.

However, after several attempts at finding a private player to build and maintain the infrastructure, the Railway Board is now planning to construct the 371-km stretch between Sonnagar and New Andal through a railway organisation itself.

The EDFC will meet the WDFC at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh.

A total of 1,046 km of WDFC has already been commissioned. The entire alignment, except the 102 km last mile rail link between Vaitarna near Palghar and JNPT in Maharashtra, is expected to be operational by this year-end, said the Businessline report.