Eastern freight corridor flags crucial 27 km link in Bihar; 65% DFC commissioned

The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) – a special purpose project which is implementing the ambitious Western (Dadri – JNPT) and Eastern (Ludhiana – Dankuni) dedicated freight corridor (DFC) totalling 3,381 kms – on Thursday completed a major milestone with the commissioning of 27-km critical and very complicated stretch between Ahraura – Deen Dayal Upadhyay leg of eastern DFC. With this, the corporation has commissioned a total of 2196 kms, or 65 percent, of the entire corridor length.

Importantly, this link provides a seamless connectivity between Sonnagar in Bihar and Sanand in Gujarat via Dadri in the National Capital Region spanning a total length of 1875 kms. With the connectivity, transit for coal from coal fields of eastern India to power plants of Northern India will be entirely on the DFC route from Sonnagar to Dadri. It may be noted that the commissioned sections on the Western corridor are being used predominantly by the container operators and the corporation has been successfully running double stack container trains.

“We have achieved a major milestone today. The Ahraura – Deen Dayal Upadhyay stretch on the eastern corridor has been completed before the target of June end. This completes the 900 kms Sonnagar-Dadri route on the eastern DFC, which is very significant for movement of coal. Time taken for freight transport on the stretch will get reduced by half to 15-20 hours compared with 35-40 hours earlier,” said Ravindra Kumar Jain, MD, DFCCIL.

“Food grain from Punjab will now be moved unhindered to the eastern part of the country using the stretch,” Jain added.

“Close to 2,200 kms of the network has been commissioned and we are operating about 225 – 250 trains daily on the corridor,” Jain said pointing to the new initiatives such as truck on train service, which is part of memorandum of understanding with Amul to carry milk tankers from Gujarat to the national capital region and cattle feed for milk unions in the return trip. The service was rolled out on June 11.

“In another major milestone DFC completed an 80 Km stretch of Shambhu to Sahnewal (Ludhiana) on June 14. DFC alignment except JNPT connectivity is expected to be commissioned in the next one year,” DFCCIL said in a release.