Freight corridor gets nod

...but major hurdles remain.

The dedicated rail freight corridor, which is the flagship project of the railway ministry, today received the "in principle" approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for its eastern and western corridors. The two corridors are to run parallel to the Golden Quadrilateral, covering a total distance of 2,743 km.

The Rs 16,580 crore western corridor would be 1,483 km long and connect Dadri (near Delhi) to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT). The Rs 11,450 crore eastern corridor would start from Ludhiana and go up to Kolkata via Sonnagar in Bihar. Its total distance is 1,280 km. The railway ministry is aiming at completing these two corridors in five years.

However, it is still a case of "too near and yet too far" for the project, as in-principle approval means that there are several loose ends which are to be tied up before the actual physical work on the project can start.

To begin with, the ministry is yet to finalise significant aspects like acquisition of land, on which no activity has started as yet.

Under the freight corridor project, 5,270 hectares of land is to be acquired for the western corridor, while 3,563 hectares of land is to be acquired for the eastern corridor.

Also, with the special purpose vehicle (SPV) created by the railway ministry for initiating the project, called Dedicated Freight Corridor India Ltd (DFCIL), suggesting in its report to the ministry that in order to create the two corridors around 3,500-odd new railway overbridges (ROBs) would have to be constructed and heights of quite a few existing structures would have to be raised, the railway ministry would have to go back to the drawing board and come with a completely different alignments for the two corridors.

In fact, sources say that due to all these grey areas, the railway ministry had sought in-principle approval for the project, so that it could get some time to rethink about the alignments.

The mood in Rail Bhavan, therefore, remains sombre, despite the CCEA's decision, and several Railway Board officials, when contacted, refused to comment as to when the actual work of laying the lines would start.

Sources say that due to the sheer enormity of the task, the ministry would take around 10 years to start and complete the project, something which the DFCIL report also suggests.

In totality, it is a Rs 60,000 crore project, which would involve construction of Delhi-Chennai and Chennai-Kolkata corridors as part of its second phase.

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OTHER CCEA DECISIONS

Nod to second phase of Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project, costing Rs 817.62 crore, to augment water supply in Hyderabad

Nod to implementation of the Integrated Handlooms Development Scheme as a centrally-sponsored scheme during the Eleventh Plan