Source: Livemint.com, Dec 27, 2020
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually inaugurate a section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) on 29 December.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal will also be present for the inauguration of the 351- km-long New Khurja-New Bhaupur section of the Eastern DFC.
An Operation Control Centre (OCC) will also be inaugurated at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. The OCC will act as the command centre for the entire Eastern (DFC).
The section is built at a cost of ₹5,750 crore and is funded by the World Bank. The new stations in the line are Bhaupur, Kanchausi, Achalda, Ekdil, Bhadan, Makhanpur, Tundla, Hathras, Daudkan and Khurja.
“In this stretch, 68 level crossings have been eliminated for augmenting speed and safety. The section has 19 major bridges, 414 minor bridges, seven rail flyovers. Tata – Aldesa JV was responsible for civil work and Alstom was responsible for the system (signalling and electrical),” according to the railway ministry.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India was set up by the government to decongest railway network, ensure faster movement of goods, increase the national carrier’s freight capacity network and reduce overall logistics cost for companies.
“Decongestion of existing Kanpur-Delhi mainline, presently, the Kanpur (Bhaupur) Khurja section is among the most congested sections of Indian Railways and line capacity utilisation is more than 150 percent. With the release of freight trains to DFC route, Indian Railways section will be able to run faster and punctual trains and will get time to do routine maintenance which was earlier a daunting challenge,” the ministry said, adding that average speed of goods train will increase up to 60-70 kmph from 25-30 kmph now. In the first phase, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India is constructing the Western and Eastern DFC. The Eastern freight corridor will start from Sahnewal near Ludhiana, Punjab will pass through Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal. The Western corridor will connect Dadri, Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), Mumbai and will traverse through UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Three more DFCs are also in pipeline.