Prime Minister Modi Inaugurates 306-Km-Long Rewari-Madar Section Of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor

Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated a 306-kilometre-long Rewari-Madar section of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) on Thursday (yesterday).

He also flagged off the world’s first 1.5 km long double stack long haul container train between New Ateli in Haryana and New Kishangarh in Rajasthan.

This section contains 16 major bridges, 269 minor bridges, four rail flyovers, 22 road overbridges and 177 road underbridges eliminating 148 level crossings. There are totally nine newly-built DFC stations in this section, six crossing stations.

The section is estimated to cost about Rs 5,800 crore including the civil, electrical and signalling works while excluding the land cost.

The Prime Minister through a video conference said ‘maha yagna’ to modernise the country's infrastructure has gained new momentum. He said dedicated freight corridor is seen as a game changer project for India in the twenty-first century.

Referring to the recent launch of the New Bhaupur-New Khurja section in the Eastern DFC, he said the average speed of the freight train has tripled in that particular section.

Lauding the efforts of the engineers and their team for achieving this remarkable feat, he said the dedicated freight corridor will bring new opportunities and new hopes for everyone especially farmers, entrepreneurs and merchants of Rajasthan.

He said the freight corridor is not only the route for modern freight trains but also a corridor for rapid development of the country. These corridors will form the basis of development of new growth centres and growth points in different cities of the country, he added.

He said the western freight corridor will make farming and allied business operations in Haryana and Rajasthan easier and also impart new energy into cities like Mahendragarh, Jaipur, Ajmer and Sikar.

Faster access to national and international markets has opened for the manufacturing units and entrepreneurs of these states at a much lower cost. Faster and cheaper connectivity to the ports of Gujarat and Maharashtra will boost new investment opportunities in the region.

Elaborating further on the benefits of the freight corridor, the Prime Minister said, it will cover 133 railway stations in nine states. At these stations, there will be multi-model logistic parks, freight terminal, container depot, container terminal, parcel hub.

All these will benefit the farmers, small industries cottage industries and larger manufacturers as well, he said.

Using the analogy of the railway tracks, the Prime Minister said that today, in India, work on infrastructure is running parallelly on two tracks — individual growth and growth of industry and entrepreneurs, who are benefitting from the rapid implementation of highway, railway, airway, waterway and multi-modal port connectivity. Like freight corridors, economic corridors, defence corridors, tech clusters are being provided to the industry.

Emphasising on the coordination between individual, industry and investment for modernisation of the Indian Railways, Modi said that significant work has been done in the areas of cleanliness, timeliness, good service, ticketing, facilities and security.

He gave examples of cleanliness of stations and compartments, biodegradable toilets, catering, modern ticketing and model trains like Tejas or Vande Bharat express, Vistadome coaches.

He highlighted the unprecedented investment in broad gauge and electrification which has led to enhanced scope and speed of the railways. He spoke of semi-high-speed trains, modern technology for laying down the tracks and expressed the hope that every North-Eastern state capital will be connected with railways.

The Prime Minister also thanked the people of Japan for their technical and financial support in the project.

The opening of this stretch will benefit various industries in Rewari-Manesar, Narnaul, Phulera and Kishangarh areas of Rajasthan, Haryana and National Capital Region.