Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal reviewed the progress of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL).
It is expected that Western Corridor connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Mumbai and Eastern Corridor starting from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab) to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal will be completed by December 2021.
Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects spanning a total length of 3360 route km undertaken by the government of India. The overall cost of the project is pegged at Rs 81,459 crore.
The Eastern and Western DFC excluding the Sonnnagar-Dankuni section is expected to be completed by the end of 2021.
The Minister directed the DFFCIL management team to necessary steps to speed up the project to compensate the loss of time due to lockdown during COVID-19. It was also decided that monitoring of work of all contractors to be done; resolution of all issues, including coordination with the states to be done on a Mission mode.
Moreover, innovative mechanisms to constantly monitor the weekly progress of the project would be evolved.
DFCCIL has been set up as a special purpose vehicle to undertake planning, development, mobilisation of financial resources, construction, maintenance and operation of DFC.
In the Phase-I the organisation is constructing the Western DFC (1,504 route km) and Eastern DFC (1,856 route km) spanning a total length of 3,360 route km.