Eastern Corridor on track to a New Industrial Revolution Mamata Banerjee Commences the Work for Dedicated Freight Corridor at Dankuni
The Minister of Railways, Mamata Banerjee, has commenced the work for Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor at Dankuni today. In the first phase of this mega project, work is being started for laying 25.41 kilometers of new dedicated line from Dankuni to Chandanpur. The Minister of Railways proposed in her Budget speech 2010-11 that the work for construction of Freight Corridor from Dankuni would be started this financial year. Accordingly, a sum of Rs. 190.46 crore has been sanctioned by Mamata Banerjee for this in the supplementary grant of Railway Budget 2010-11. With the commencement of work at Dankuni, the Eastern Corridor will finally traverse a length of about 1806 kilometers from Dankuni to Ludhiana.
Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) for Eastern Railway is planned from Dankuni to Dadri and Ludhiana to cater to the freight traffic on this route. The proposed freight corridor is being designed for a maximum speed of 100 kmph for train operation. The Eastern Corridor extends from Dankuni to Ludhiana and Khurja to Dadri. It will pass via Asansol, Dhanbad, Sonnagar, Khurja and Saharanpur. It will be electrified single line on the Ludhiana-Khurja portion and electrified double line on the remaining portion.
Indian Railways is one of the largest Railway systems in the world., Over the last 50 years there has been an enormous growth of transport sector. The volume of freight traffic in Railways has increased five folds. The freight which was 73 MT in 1950-51, had increased to 474 MT in 2000-01 i.e. an increase of 401 MT in 50 years. Now this figure has increased to 890 MT i.e. an increase of 416 MT in just 9 years. To meet this huge demand the Ministry of Railways has planned to construct Dedicated Freight Corridor on the Western and Eastern arms of the country covering about 2,762 route kms on two corridors.
India’s largest infrastructure project, the Dedicated Freight Corridor project covering 2762 kms. on the Western and Eastern corridors, is one of the most ambitious projects that Indian Railways has ever taken up and once completed would meet the transport requirements of the two busy trunk routes for the next 15-20 years and would also help segregation of passenger and freight traffic on these routes.
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