As delays push the completion date of the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) to June 2022, Minister of Railways, Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal reviewed progress of the project.
The earlier planned date of completion for the DFC was December 2021. This was the last of several revisions of the project completion date before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Goyal has asked the management of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL), the executing and operating agency for the project, to ‘take all possible steps to speed up the pace of works,’ said a statement from the Ministry of Railways.
Among the measures suggested by the minister were to hold regular weekly meetings with stakeholders and provide incentives to contractors for finishing work before the stipulated time, according to the statement.
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The minister has asked the DFCCIL for ‘Creation of a Dashboard for real time ‘Km by Km’ project monitoring,’ and to make it accessible to Indian Railways officials. This will help resolution of issues on an urgent basis, claims the MoR statement.
No mention was made on the possibility of further delays to completion of the project
Major Capacity Enhancement Project
Totalling 3,360 route kilometres, the DFC is a significant capacity enhancement project that will reduce burden on two key trunk railway routes between Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata.
The Eastern Corridor is 1,856 kilometres long while the Western Corridor is 1,506 kilometres in length. The current estimated cost of the project is Rs. 81,459 crores.
The project will help separate a large amount of freight traffic to dedicated freight lines, thus allowing more passenger or freight trains to be run on existing lines.