However, the dedicated freight corridors, envisaged in 2006 by the then UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for high-speed and high-capacity transportation of goods and commodities, are all set to be a game-changer in the country.

The latest step to achieve this dream project is the formal opening up of the 402-km-long New Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay (DDU) Nagar-New Bhaupur section by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 18, 2023.

Before that, the 351-km-long New Bhaupur-New Khurja section and 137-km DDU-Sonnagar section were inaugurated on two different occasions setting the pace for a complete shift in the way freight trains have been operated in India.

The first train, which the Prime Minister flagged off on December 18, touched a speed of almost 100 km/hour between its originating station New Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Nagar and its destination point at New Bhaupur.

“About 100 goods trains operated at an average speed of 75 km/hour in the first 24 hours in that particular section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor,” a senior official from the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), said. This would imply that the average speed for freight trains at least on one dedicated corridor has nearly doubled.

He added, “This is unprecedented and historic for the country because it has happened for the first time that freight trains are running at higher speed than many of our mail or express or even Vande Bharat trains, many of which clock their average speed between 60 km/hour to 70 km/hour.”

Since its inauguration, on average 150 to 200 freight trains are running daily maintaining the average speed between 75 to 80 kmph. DFCC officials say that their target is to increase the operation to 300 trains daily with an average speed of 90 kmph.

At present, 88.4 per cent of work on the two dedicated freight corridors - the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Ludhiana to Sonnagar (1337 Km) and the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal (JNPT) to Dadri (1506 Km) – are complete and they will be opened in a phased manner.

DFCC officials say that even before the inauguration, 100 to 150 trains were running daily in the completed sections of the corridor but now with its formal opening has set a new milestone in the logistics and supply-chain sector of the country.

The complete section of EDFC was made operational for trial purposes in October 2023. According to the Indian Railways, the cumulative expenditure incurred on the two corridors till October 2023 is 1,08,558 crore.

EDFC: Crucial For The Supply Of Coal

The construction work of the 1337 km-long EDFC is complete and it is being opened in a phased manner. Three sections have already been inaugurated accounting for a total of 890 km of the corridor.

From the eastern side, the corridor starts from Sonnagar in Bihar and goes up to Sahnewal in Ludhiana (Punjab) crossing five major points falling in Uttar Pradesh - DDU, New Bhaupur, Khurja, Dadri and Pilkhani.

“EDFC is going to play a crucial role in the transportation of coal from the eastern part of the country to the northern side of the country where our power plants are situated,” Atul Kumar, Chief General Manager, DFCC, said while addressing media persons recently.

He added, “The coal production areas of the country such as Dhanbad, Jharia etc are about 400 km from Sonnagar. Once coal reaches Sonnagar from our coal-belts, its transportation to the northern part of the country will be much faster than what it used to be earlier.”

According to Kumar, “While earlier transportation of coal used to take three days, now it will happen in only one day. Besides coal, other agricultural products can also be transported in other parts of the country much faster than earlier.”

WDFC: Bringing Mumbai Port Closer To Northern India

Out of 1506 km of the total length of WDFC, 1176 km (78 per cent) is ready and work on the remaining 22 per cent is ongoing aggressively to finish it as early as possible.

WDFC starts from Mumbai (JNPT) and covers 1506 km to reach Dadri in Uttar Pradesh where it meets EDFC. It crosses important centres such as Vaitarna, New Gholvad, Makarpura, Sanand, Palanpur and Rewari. The corridor crosses through five states – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and UP.

One of its 306 km-long sections between Rewari-Madar was inaugurated in January 2021 and work between Sanand- Makarpura, New Gholvad- Vaitarna and Vaitarna Mumbai (JNPT) is going on, with a target to complete the corridor by March 2024.

DFCC officials say that WDFC is crucial in bridging the distance between Mumbai Port and several industrial and business centres of North India by way of faster transportation giving a huge boost to various manufacturing and business activities along with bringing the logistic costs down substantially.

Not only that, experts say that areas along corridors have a strong potential to develop as industrial hubs creating huge business and employment opportunities for the country.

The dedicated freight corridors will also benefit passenger train operations in the country as they can offload freight trains from passenger routes providing more space and opportunity for mail and express trains.

“This will enhance safety in passenger train operations in these routes because now gradually freight trains will be taken off from the passenger routes to the dedicated freight routes reducing the burden on passenger train track. Besides, the dedicated freight corridor can be used for emergency use for passenger trains if such need arises any time in future,” Kumar said.

(Praveen Mishra is an independent journalist. Views expressed are personal)