Dedicated Freight Corridor

Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) is a high speed and high capacity railway corridor that are exclusively meant for the transportation of freight or in other words goods and commodities. DFC involves seamless integration of better infrastructure and state of the art technology. This article shares the economic benefits of Dedicated Freight Corridor and the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) established in 2006 to oversee its development.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Benefits

Freight Transportation is the fulcrum in the growth of Indian Economy. A nation like India can benefit in the following areas due to Dedicated Freight Corridors.

• Logistics costs will be reduced
• Higher energy efficiency
• Faster movement of goods
• It is Environment friendly
• Helps in generating more employment
• Boost for Real Estate Sector

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL)

• It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU).
• The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) is a business establishment operated by the Railways Ministry of the Government of India to work the dedicated freight corridors (DFCs).
• It engages in the planning and development, deployment of monetary resources, building, upkeep and the operation of the DFCs.
• The organisation was incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 on 30th October 2006.
• DFCCIL has been assigned the status of ‘special purpose vehicle’ by the Indian government.

DFCCIL’s Mission

• To build a corridor with appropriate technology that enables Indian railways to regain its market share of freight transport by creating additional capacity and guaranteeing efficient, reliable, safe and cheaper options for mobility to its customers.
• To set up Multimodal logistic parks along the DFC to provide complete transport solution to customers.
• To support the government’s initiatives toward ecological sustainability by encouraging users to adopt railways as the most environment-friendly mode for their transport requirements.

Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC):

• It is a broad gauge corridor.
• 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.
• In October 2006, a dedicated body, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) has been established to carry out the project.
• The project will be funded by a soft loan of $4bn provided by Japan International Cooperation Agency under special terms for economic partnership (STEP).

Important places in this route:

1. It passes through Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Phulera and Rewari.
2. Passing through , Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Significance:

• The western DFC will separate freight and passenger traffic to increase the speed of freight movement.
• It will be used to transport fertilisers, food grains, salt, coal, iron & steel and cement.
• The project will eventually be linked to the Eastern DFC to form four hubs known as India’s Golden Quadrilateral including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

Need of DFCs

Increased burden: Covering a total of 10,122 km, these corridors carry the heaviest traffic and are highly congested. The route carries 52% of passenger traffic and 58% of freight traffic, according to the Make-in-India report of 2017. Also, these routes are highly saturated, with line capacity utilisation reaching as high as 150%.

Rise in demand: Considering increased transport demands, overtly congested routes and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with road transport, these freight corridors will help reduce the cost and allow faster transportation.

Revenue generation: They will open new avenues for investment, as this will lead to the construction of industrial corridors and logistic parks along these routes.