First Eastern freight corridor section to be ready this fiscal

The Railways is likely to make the 56-km stretch between Durgauti and Sasaram operational by next March with the rest of the track likely to follow in phases in 2017-18.

The Durgauti-Sasaram section is likely to be commissioned on a pilot basis, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCI) informed reporters here recently.

“A small section will be operational before next March and on the whole, the Eastern and Western Corridors will be functional in phases from 2017-18 and 2019-20. The aim is to complete the project ahead of time,” said Adesh Sharma, Managing Director, DFCCI.

A 3,360-km track comprising both corridors is being constructed at a cost of ₹82,000 crore.

The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) is 1,856 km long while the Western arm is 1,504 km. Sharma expected a sizeable quantity of goods traffic to shift to the railways from roads once the corridors were operational, to about 45 per cent from 36 per cent at present.

“DFC will run fixed timetable goods trains which will cut the transportation time between Delhi and Mumbai to 20 hours and Delhi-Kolkata to 24 hours. There will be a train every 10 minutes and operational costs will come down by 40 per cent. This will see a shift in goods movement to trains from road transport,” said Sharma.

With regard to land acquisition for the projects, Sharma said that compensation to affected individuals and families will be commensurate to any modification in the law.

“Land acquisition is held up only in a few patches along both corridors. Payments will be adjusted to the new Land Act,” he said.

Out of the total 10.548 hectares to be acquired, DFCCI informed that 85 per cent has been acquired except in the Sonnagar-Dankuni section.

Acquisition has been held up in 144 patches covering a length of 245 km in the EDFC and 296 patches covering 113 km in the Western section.