Freight corridor hits new block

Route will need 3,500 new overbridges to be built.

The 2,700 km east-west dedicated freight corridor to link Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata appears a distant possibility with the company created to implement it raising critical issues about the route.

A report to the Railway Board by Dedicated Freight Corridor India Ltd (DFCIL), the special purpose vehicle the railways ministry has created, has said there are far too many physical structures that may have to be either built or removed to lay the lines.

According to the report, laying new lines would require demolishing several railway over-bridges (ROBs) and flyovers and the construction of 3,500-odd new ROBs.

The heights of some of the existing structures may also have to be raised since the ministry plans to run double-stack container trains on these corridors, especially on the Delhi-Mumbai route.

The points raised by DFCIL suggest that the project will take ten years to be completed instead of the targeted five and will suffer a significant cost overrun.

Senior Railway Board officials declined to comment on the report.

The railways ministry may have to now go back to the drawing board which may raise questions about the project's fate.

These issues add to other problems with the project. First, the railways ministry is struggling to acquire land for it. Building over 3,000 physical structures would compound the problems of land acquisition.

Second, the finance ministry has reprimanded the railways for not finalising funding for the Rs 28,300-crore project before approaching the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for investment clearance.

The finance ministry has described approaching the CCEA as "premature", saying the land acquisition should also have been completed first.

The proposed rail routes under the project are to run parallel to the Golden Quadrilateral road network covering 2,743 km under the eastern (Delhi-Kolkata) and western (Delhi-Mumbai) corridors in the first phase.

The Delhi-Mumbai route is 1,483 km long and the cost of constructing is pegged at Rs 16,580 crore.

The Delhi-Kolkata eastern corridor is 1,280 km long and will cost Rs 11,450 crore.