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The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), a significant infrastructure initiative championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, covering a span of 1,337 kilometres from Punjab to Bihar, has reached completion ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The corridor is set for commissioning, with full-scale operations expected to commence on November 1, as stated by RK Jain, Managing Director of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCC). The inaugural section of the EDFC was opened in December 2020, and now, after three years, the entire corridor has been finalized.
During a press conference, Jain highlighted the corridor's benefits for thermal power plants in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and partly Rajasthan, emphasizing its primary role in facilitating coal traffic. Senior executives revealed that the corridor incurred a total cost of 255,000 crore, surpassing the initially approved budget. Jain attributed the majority of the cost escalation to factors such as land acquisition and alterations in the project's scope.
Freight corridors are specialized railway tracks designed for cargo trains, aimed at easing congestion in the railway network and facilitating quicker transportation of goods. Dedicated freight corridors, benefiting from reduced passenger traffic, maintain an average speed of 50-60 kmph, nearly three times faster than regular railway tracks. Presently, 140 trains are operational on various segments of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), which has been partially operational since 2020, with a track capacity to accommodate 250 trains daily.
Prior to the completion of the EDFC, freight trains traveling from Sonnagar to Dadri, including the congested Mughalsarai section, took 35-50 hours. With the EDFC now finished, this journey is expected to be reduced to 18-20 hours.
The corridor is a crucial element in the government's strategy to prevent future coal shortages by optimizing the transportation network. Despite a cost overrun of 54 percent for the two corridors, they are anticipated to play a pivotal role in enhancing the efficiency of freight transportation. Jain reported that the cost has now reached 1.24 trillion. A proposal for these revised costs has been forwarded to the Union Cabinet.
In 2015, the Cabinet sanctioned a revised cost estimate of 181,459 crore for the two freight corridors. The current adjustment includes 21,846 crore for land acquisition and 1.02 trillion for construction and other expenses.
Although the EDFC project received approval over 15 years ago, it encountered numerous obstacles such as issues with land acquisition, delays in contract awards, consultant appointments, loan approvals, and, more recently, the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. These factors impeded the project's implementation, resulting in increased costs. The initially expected traffic of 153 million tonnes for EDFC in 2021-22 is now projected to rise to 251 million tonnes by 2036-37.
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