Gati Shakti may enable faster implementation of dedicated freight corridors

Detailed project reports of East-West and North-South freight corridors being reworked

The Prime Minister’s Gati Shakti - National Master Plan, which is being adopted by every infrastructure department, is set to enable faster implementation of the dedicated freight corridors (DFCs).

Government officials said that after several rounds of meetings, Indian Railways is exploring the possibility of switching to alternative routes for certain stretches of the proposed East-West and North-South DFCs.

In these routes, Indian Railways may not have to obtain wildlife and mining clearances for certain stretches of these two DFCs. This may result in faster implementation of such long-gestation infra-structure projects.

For this, two of the detailed project reports (DPRs) for the East-West and North-South DFCs are currently being reworked.

The original execution plan, which was based on the shortest route, would lead the railways into mining areas. There, it runs into environmental clearance-related delays, three government officials said.

“Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (under Indian Railways) is currently assessing impact of the reworked route. During its last presentation to us (railways), we did suggest that they look at alternate routes for these stretches,” one of the officials said.

Another official said that the two stretches fall in the eastern coastal region, and the early identification of possible obstacles was possible due to use of the Gati Shakti portal.

“Rather than working on some alignment and then running into a problem, the information is available to us at the DPR stage. Maybe, if we didn’t have Gati Shakti, somebody would have demarcated the shortest route and we’d have run into a clearance problem,” he said. He also informed that of the two DPRs being currently worked out, one is in an advanced stage and nearing completion. Gati Shakti is one of the top four priorities for the next fiscal year, as laid out in the Union Budget 2022-23.

Aligning infrastructure projects with the national master plan is being done to minimise disruption, cost and time overruns in project implementation. It is set to also improve multimodal connectivity to various economic zones.

While the government is in the process of constructing Eastern and Western DFCs, the railways has already set in motion three more DFCs. These are in the DPR stage to assess costs and feasibility on various fronts. The three proposed DFCs are East-Coast corridor, East-West corridor and North-South sub-corridor.

While the alternative or the new route is longer, the overall impact to the project’s timelines would not be more than 5-10 per cent.

With time saved on clearances, railways expects DPR and project execution to adhere to stipulated timelines or be even faster, the official said.

Gati Shakti is a digital portal that is being integrated with the existing portal and data of key infrastructure ministries, as well as state governments. The industry department is coordinating with all infrastructure ministries for implementation of projects.