Dedicated Freight Corridor Project : Indian Railways

View attachment 2040
The only funds released to the project is a about 480 million $ loan from ADB and 1600 cr from AP in the present budget. While DMIC has 49% stake of centre and 51% from financial institutions. Any more proof you guys need about how SI is getting discriminated ?

@Notsuperstitious My point is justified even here, for the contribution that MH makes to India it gets back enough projects from centre to make it more prosperous. While that is not the case of SI.

First a Vizag Chennai corridor have to get favour in "Chennai" to be even considered. Same way Karnataka isnt interested much in Bangalore-Chennai Corridor cos it doesnt favour Karnataka much. So a plan and feasability study has to be done by the railways, which has analysts who ensure they want to succeed and the project to become financially viable. Currently many wants to do CB, BM, DM routes. Even Kolkata route doesnt find favour much as it doesnt pass through industrial corridors. However its expected the infrastructure will spur growth in UP, Bihar and WB regions.
 
Railways may propose ₹56,000-crore East Coast freight corridor next year

New Delhi: Indian Railways is going to propose the inclusion of India’s third freight corridor between Kharagpur and Vijaywada sections to be built at a cost of about ₹56,000 crore next year. The project, which is also called the East Coast Corridor, will be 1,114km in length and is part of the Golden Quadrilateral project of Indian Railways.

“The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) has sent a proposal to Indian Railways to undertake the third dedicated freight corridor project. Indian Railways is going to put the project before the finance ministry for its inclusion in Budget 2019-20,” DFCCIL managing director A.K. Sachan said.

The decision was taken as the Kharagpur-Vijaywada section is one of the busiest routes in East Coast. The project will be funded using equity from Indian Railways and loans.

Indian Railways, through its arm DFCCIL, is already undertaking the construction of two freight corridors—Eastern Freight Corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (1,856km) and Western Freight Corridor from Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (1,504km)—being built at a cost of ₹81,000 crore.

On 15 August, DFCCIL conducted a successful train run on the newly-built Ateli-Phulera section of the Western Corridor.

The 190-km route from Haryana to Rajasthan has the ability to run trains at a speed of 100km per hour against the current maximum speed of 75km per hour on Indian Railways track.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech for 2016-17 had proposed to take up three more freight corridors—East-West Corridor (2,328km) between Kolkata and Mumbai, North-South Corridor (2,343km) between Delhi and Chennai and East Coast Corridor (1,114km) between Kharagpur and Vijaywada.

The Railways, in its Preliminary Engineering Cum Traffic Survey (PETS) reports of these three corridors, had said that the corridors will run parallel to the existing alignment and will be designed in such a way that there were no surface crossing or rail flyovers.

The freight traffic projections in the three new corridors, according to PETS reports, indicate a level of approximately 1,300 million tonnes by 2026-27.

The estimated completion costs for the East-West Corridor is ₹1,10,529 crore, while for the North-South and East Coast Corridors it is ₹1,04,471 crore and ₹56,749 crore, respectively, according to a response in Parliament by minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha in 2016.

$38 billion for next three corridors.
 
800-km stretch of dedicated freight corridor to be opened this year

Almost 800 km of the Dedicated Rail Freight Corridor is set to open this fiscal, with the remaining stretch of 1,500 km to be commissioned next year.

The project is only 50 per cent complete in terms of civil and electrical works, according to an official source.

However, the “percentage progress” does not mean the project cannot be completed by next year, as a lot of time was taken for project preparation, the source said. Against its earlier plan to open the entire network at one go, the Railways has now decided to open it in phases.

The first phase of about 200 km — between Ateli (in Haryana’s Mahendragarh district) and Phulera (near Jaipur) — will be opened later this month. It will use diesel engines, as the North Western Railway is not yet electrified.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL), the infrastructure owner and manager, has handed over this set of tracks to the Railways, the operator. The Prime Minister, in his Independence Day speech, is likely to talk about this development, said an official. The government’s move to bring into effect the new land acquisition law had Railway officials in a quandary over the extent of compensation to be paid to each land-owner.

Land acquisition
The total land acquisition cost also doubled to ₹16,000 crore from the initial estimate of ₹8,000 crore after the new law came into force. This prompted a tweak in the routes.

The initial plan was to build new tracks away from the existing ones. After the new Act came in, to rein in land costs and prevent disputes, the Railways decided to build the freight corridor closer to the existing tracks.

Though many of these tracks run through railway stations — which could cause further project delays — the plan on the whole reduced complications as a lot of land parcels were already owned by the Railways, and DFCCIL could bypass negotiations.

More hurdles

Removing the level crossings proved another major challenge as several locals were opposed to it. The Railways involved the local governments to overcome this hurdle.

As it happens with most infrastructure projects, there were disputes on land acquisition, and with numerous contractors. “One of the big challenges was to ensure the bills were paid to contractors within the contract rules,” said a source.

The cost of the project, conceptualised in 2006, rose from the estimated ₹28,000 crore to about ₹81,000 crore, which was approved by the Cabinet.

The cost of funds from Japanese agency JICA and the World Bank also soared, effectively increasing the interest cost of loan repayment, which the Centre will have to bear.

Removing the level crossings proved a major challenge as the locals opposed the move
 
Ateli enters history on a freight train

DE03%20Dedicate%20freight%20corridor%20rev




The small town in Haryana marked the inauguration of the first stretch of the 3,360-km-long Dedicated Freight Corridor, touted as one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the country
Ateli, a small town in Haryana, etched its name in Indian Railways freight history with the flagging off of the inaugural freight train on the 3,360-km-long Dedicated Freight Corridor from here in August.

Ateli is not the starting point of the corridor, nor is it likely to be a major junction on that route. But it’s the beginning of the only operational stretch of the freight corridor. The station before Ateli — Rewari, where track laying work is still on — is expected to be one of the main junctions. Rewari, about 30 km away from Ateli, also houses the Inland Container Depot of Container Corporation of India.

The first 190-km stretch of the Dedicated Freight Corridor — touted as one of the biggest infrastructure projects, at a cost of ₹81,459 crore, undertaken in India — from Ateli to Phulera in Rajasthan was opened on August 15.

The work to build the two dedicated freight corridors — the Eastern DFC (from Punjab to West Bengal) and the Western DFC (from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra) — is on in full swing. Over 98% of the land has been acquired and almost all contracts for projects, ranging from building of bridges to electrification, have been awarded.

While some train movement has started on the first opened section, any tangible benefit from the corridor will be seen only after completion of the 1,000-km rail track, an official of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India said.

Weekly operations
Since the launch Ateli has seen about five-six double-stack trains, with one goods container stacked over another, pass through. For now, the officials have been told that at least one train will pass from Ateli to Phulera every Sunday.

The DFCCIL official said that on the western corridor, the 29-km stretch from Rewari to Ateli and 215-km track from Phulera to Marwar (in Rajasthan) will open in December this year.

Meanwhile, the first 43-km stretch in the eastern corridor from Khurja to Bhaupur (both in Uttar Pradesh) will be opened in November 2018. The deadline to open the entire 3,360 km corridor is March 2020.

Linked tracks
The rail tracks through the corridor mostly run parallel to the Indian Railways tracks, and the two have been interlinked at a distance of every 100-150 km. And even in the opened stretch, while the tracks are functional and the new stations built, the civil work, including building staff quarters and erecting pillars for electrification of tracks, is still on.

At Bhagega, Rajasthan, which also lies on the Ateli-Phulera route, the rails are being assembled and sleepers manufactured in a makeshift factory. The rails are being imported from Japan and being wielded together. The machines for making the sleepers are being used for the first time in India and are capable of manufacturing 400 sleepers at one time as opposed to four under the current system used by Indian Railways.

Nearly 10 lakh sleepers have already been made at this factory. These are transported from Bhagega to neighbouring stations.

The 190-km Ateli-Phulera stretch is part of the 1,504-km western freight corridor that will begin in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, and go up till the country’s largest container port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, near Mumbai. In the process, the track will pass through dedicated stations in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The 1,856-km eastern corridor will run from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata, traversing Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Once the corridor becomes operational, freight trains will be able to run at a maximum speed of 100 km/hour as against the current maximum speed of 75 km/hour on the Indian Railways tracks. Consequently, the average speed of the freight trains will also increase from the existing 26 km/hour on Indian Railways lines to 70 km/hour in the dedicated freight corridors. Also, the goods train will run as per a set time table, much like the passenger trains.

Game changer
The corridor is poised to become a game changer for the Indian Railways whose share in freight logistics and transportation has been constantly declining due to competition from roads, and to some extent from waterways.

The share of Indian Railways in freight transportation has come down to 28% from 60% a few years ago.

According to a report by IBEF, around 1,107.10 million tonnes of freight was transported via trains in the financial year 2017 and 2,165 million tonnes is expected to be transported in 2020. These include goods such as mineral ores, iron, steel, fertilisers, petrochemicals and agricultural produce.

Freight continues to remain the major revenue earning segment for Indian Railways, accounting for 64.32% of total revenues in the financial year 2017.

Profits from the freight segment are used to cross-subsidise the passenger segment, the IBEF pointed out in its report.
 
Dedicated Freight Corridor to join hands with Amazon, Flipkart to boost its parcel business

By Jitendra Singh
December 30, 2019
Railway-freight-image...jpg

The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) is planning to join hands with e-commerce firms such as Amazon and Flipkart.

DFCCIL is talking to the e-commerce firms for using its logistics hubs. According to sources close to this development, a partnership with the e-comm firms would boost its parcel business.

“Apart from reducing average delivery time of a parcel for major cities, hinterland customers will also benefit out of this through our intermediate stations,” said a Business Standard report quoting a DFCCIL source aware of the development.

Meanwhile, the Indian Railway Board has already initiated a pilot with Amazon by providing it parcel space in Sealdah and Mumbai Rajdhanis.

Most of the eastern and western hubs, which cover a total of 3,360 km track, will be reportedly operational by December 2021. “E-comm firms will be able to use them once they are operational,” added the report.

The eastern and western dedicated freight corridors project will be passing through states including Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. DFCCIL has also reached out to these states to provide suitable road connectivity to each station on the DFC.

The move will likely to cut the parcel delivery time for metro cities from five days to one day.

At present, the average speed of freight trains is 22.4 kmph. It is expected to go up to 75-100 kmph to improve on delivery time.

Indian Railways has been witnessing a downfall in its parcel business. In FY19, its parcel business went down 8 per cent to Rs 1,744.8 crore in compared to Rs 1,895.9 crore in FY18.

Dedicated Freight Corridor to join hands with Amazon, Flipkart to boost its parcel business
 
Commercial trial run on a stretch in Western Corridor begins

From Jaipur
By KNN
30/12/2019, 12:56pm
1577720477320.png

Commercial trial run on a stretch in Western Corridor begins.

The 300-km+ section between Rewari, Haryana to Madar, Rajasthan is now open for commercial trial runs. The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd. (DFCCIL) opened the stretch, which will benefit various industries in Rewari, Manesar, Narnaul, Phulera and Kishangarh areas of Rajasthan and Haryana.

This is the first section to be opened on the under-construction 1,500-km western freight corridor.

The newly opened section covering a total of 664 track km has been constructed at a cost of almost Rs 4,000 crore (excluding land charges).

According to some reports, by March 2020, over 650 km of the section between Rewari and Palanpur in Gujarat will be opened for commercial operations.

The dedicated corridor will attract about 80% of the freight train movements and result into a much faster movement of goods trains, vacating track space for passenger trains.

The 1,504-km western freight corridor begins at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and stretches till the country’s largest container port — Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, near Mumbai — passing through U.P., Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

DFCCIL is a special purpose vehicle tasked with planning and completion of 3,306 kms of Dedicated Freight Corridors, consisting of western freight corridor and eastern freight corridor (1,856 kms). The total project cost is estimated at over Rs 81,000 crore.

Commercial trial run on a stretch in Western Corridor begins
 
Railways tests new BOXNS freight wagons at 110 kmph

Source : IANS Last Updated: Sun, Dec 22, 2019 20:32 hrs
1577721177595.png

Freight train "Sabarmati" of the Indian Railways carrying a double stack of containers.

New Delhi: The Indian Railways has conducted speed trial -- up to 110 kmph -- of the new BOXNS wagons with the 25-tonne axle load on the newly built 193 km Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) on Friday.

A senior Railway Ministry official said, here on Saturday, the Research Design and Standards Organisation of the Railways conducted the trial on the Western DFC -- Phulera to Ateli.

During the trial, the train attained an average speed of 86 kmph. The official termed it a big breakthrough and said the railways had to wait for the last 40 years "ever since we got the Casnub bogie design for the freight wagons".

He said the BOXNS wagons cleared 100 kmph in both loaded and empty condition on the DFC. According to railway officials, the freight wagons normally run at 60 kmph with 22.9-tonne axle load and at 45 kmph with 25-tonne axle load on few routes.

The Railways is constructing the DFC equipped for heavy-haul train operation. The Rs 81,459 crore project received the Cabinet's nod in 2006 and has since then missed several deadlines due reasons, like procedural wrangles, land acquisition and environment clearances.

Railways tests new BOXNS freight wagons at 110 kmph
 
Last edited:
Railways identifies 6 high-speed corridors, 4 DFCs

He said, "Already we have started operations on over 500 km of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC)."

Giving the details, he said, on EDFC, operations have started on 194 km between Khurja-Badhan and on 306 km stretch between Madar-Rewari on WDFC.

The 3,373-km DFC, a flagship project of the Railways, aims to augment rail transport capacity to meet the growing requirement of movement of goods by segregating freight from passenger traffic.

The Western DFC runs from Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai to Tughlakabad and Dadri near Delhi, and aims to cater largely to the container transport requirements between the existing and emerging ports in Maharashtra and Gujarat and the northern hinterland.

The 1,839 km Eastern DFC runs from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata -- to be extended in future to serve the new deep-sea port proposed in the Kolkata area, and will largely handle coal and steel traffic. The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India plans to run freight trains at a maximum speed of 100 kmph as against the current 75 kmph.

It also plans to increase the average speed of freight trains from the existing 26 kmph to 70 kmph on the DFC. Yadav also said that the national transporter is looking for four new Dedicated Freight Corridors. He said, the railways has identified the new freight corridors -- 1,114 km East Coast Corridor from Kharagpur to Vijaywada, 1,645 km East West Sub Corridor between Bhusaval-Wardha-Nagpur-Rajkharswan-Kharagpur-Ulberia-Dankuni, 195 km East West Sub Corridor II, between Rajkharswan-Andal and 975 km North South sub Corridor from Vijaywada to Itarsi.

He said the Railways will now carry out the detailed project report of the 3,933 km four freight corridors and they will be completed in the next one or two years