Railways prune length of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, August 16

The Ministry of Railways has dropped the plan of stretching the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) up to Dankuni in West Bengal.

The EDFC would now terminate at Andal in West Bengal which is will make it 163 km shorter than what was originally planned.

The Sonnagar (Bihar) – Dankuni section of EDFC was to be developed in two phases , Sonnagar- Andal section, Phase-I (375 Km) and Andal – Dankuni section, Phase-II (163 Km).

The total 538 km stretch of this section was proposed to be executed under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode since the beginning.

However, after several years of failed attempts, the Ministry has reworked the proposal and it has been decided now to complete the 375 km stretch between Sonnagar and Andal with “100 per cent funding from Central Government”.

Briefing reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet here today, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the plan to extend the DFC up to Dankuni has been dropped. “We already have capacity in the section (Andal to Dankuni”), Vaishnaw said answering a question.

Track on the 375 km stretch between Sonnagar and Andal will be laid at a cost of Rs 13606 crore. The work will include construction of bridges over the river Phalgu (686 km) and Barakar (594 m). The major traffic generators which will be contributing to Sonnagar- Andal section are coal, container, steel, food grains, cement, POL, etc.

From Sahnewal near Ludhiana in Punjab and passing through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, the 1337 long EDFC was supposed to reach up to Dankuni.

The two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) — namely, Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors (EDFC and WDFC) – aimto facilitate faster movement of freight traffic.

The 1,506-km-long WDFC runs from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal in Maharashtra.

Till January 31, 2023,a total route length of 1,724 km (861 km of EDFC and 863 km of WDFC) has been commissioned.