Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor Project

  • The proposed Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor Project in Ludhiana-Delhi-Mughal Sarai railway route will reduce the congestion of the route and decrease travel-time for passenger trains.The corridor will add additional rail transport capacity, improve service quality and create higher freight capacity.
  • This is part of India’s first Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) initiative – being built on two main routes – the Western and the Eastern Corridors. These corridors will help India make a quantum leap in increasing the railways’ transportation capacity along the “Golden Quadrilateral” – the four rail routes that connect Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. Currently, these routes account for just 16 percent of the railway network’s length, but carry more than 60 percent of India’s total rail freight.
  • The Eastern Corridor, starting from Ludhiana in Punjab will pass through the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal.
  • The programme will be carried out by Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India with the financial aid from World Bank.
Latest News on Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor Project
28 Oct 2011 : World Bank Signs Loan Agreement with India The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor Project- I.  The World Bank signed a US$ 975 million loan agreement with Government of India, and the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd. (DFCCIL) to set-up the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor-I (a freight-only rail line) that will help faster and more efficient movement of raw materials and finished goods between the Northern and Eastern parts of India. The corridor will also allow Indian Railways to free up capacity and better-serve the large passenger market in this densely populated region. This is part of India’s first Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) initiative – being built on two main routes – the Western and the Eastern Corridors. 
The Indian Railways urgently needs to add freight routes to meet the growing freight traffic in India, which is projected to increase more than 7 percent annually. Dedicated freight corridors will not only meet this growing freight demand, but also decongest the already saturated rail network and promote the shifting of freight transport from road to more efficient rail transport. Augmenting its transport systems is a crucial element of India’s trillion-dollar infrastructure agenda for the next Five-Year Plan (XIIth Plan) which starts in 2012. Since the 1990s, road transport has advanced more rapidly than the railways, and now accounts for about 65 percent of the freight market and 90 percent of the passenger market in India, and those shares are growing. The project also has significant contribution in reducing GHGs and the Government of India is committed to increasing the share of rail transport in this mix.

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