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| DFCC MD Adesh Sharma |
THE Indian Railways’ arm implementing
the ambitious freight corridor project, Dedicated Freight Corridor
Corporation (DFCC), is planning to award contracts worth Rs 26,000
crore in the current fiscal (2015-16). The move aims at expediting
work and meet the deadline for commissioning the Rs 81,000 crore
project.
“In 2015-16 we want to finalise all
the contracts as the entire funding for the project has been tied up.
Five contracts worth Rs 8,000 crore for the Eastern Dedicated Freight
Corridor (EDFC) and nine contracts worth Rs 18,000 crore for the
Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) are to be awarded this
fiscal,” a...
business daily quoted DFCC managing director Adesh
Sharma as saying.
For the construction of the EDFC,
contracts worth Rs 4,000 crore were awarded in 2013 followed by
another Rs 5,000 crore contract last year.
“The additional five contracts this
year would be for signaling and telecommunication, electrification
and civil construction. Similarly, for WDFC, in order to meet the
deadline we will award the nine contracts for electrification,
signaling, track works and civil works,” Sharma said.
DFCC had awarded a Rs 7,000 crore
contract for the 650-km Rewari and Palanpur section in August
2013.
Later, a Rs 4,000-crore contract placed
last year for electrification between the Rewari and Vadodara
stretch.
The Golden Quadrilateral linking Delhi,
Mumbai, Chennai and Howrah – and its two diagonals Delhi-Chennai
and Mumbai-Howrah – accounts for only 18% of the Indian Railways’
network but carries more than 58% of revenue-earning freight traffic.
The existing routes of Howrah-Delhi on
the Eastern Corridor and Mumbai-Delhi on the Western corridor are
highly saturated creating the need for dedicated routes.
DFCC is currently constructing the
3,350-km-long freight corridor project including 1,800 Km as its
Eastern arm between Ludhiana and Dankuni in West Bengal.
The Eastern DFC comprises three phases
-- Ludhiana to Mughalsarai, Mughalsarai to Sonnagar and Sonnagar to
Dankuni.
The Western DFC will come up between
Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai. The
project, when commissioned in 2019, would take up more than 70% of
the Indian Railways freight traffic on to its faster, longer and
heavier trains.
The Eastern DFC accounts for around 40%
of the total project cost. Phase I of the project between Khurja and
Mughalsarai is being funded through 66% debt from World Bank and the
rest as equity from the rail ministry.
The Phase II corridor between
Mughalsarai and Sonnagar is being funded entirely through the
government equity while the third phase between Sonnagar and Dankuni
is to be developed on PPP mode.
Japan is providing a Special Terms of
Economic Partnership (STEP) loan of 677 billion yen extended on soft
terms for forty years with a moratorium of 10 years.
The World Bank is also providing
financial aid for the ambitious infra project.
The first tranche of the loan for 90.2
billion yen for construction between Rewari and Vadodara and
additional 266 billion yen for funding Phase II (Vadodara-JNPT) of
the Corridor has been signed.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation
of India is a special purpose vehicle set up under the administrative
control of Ministry of Railways to undertake planning &
development, mobilization of financial resources and construction,
maintenance and operation of the Dedicated Freight Corridors. DFCCIL
was incorporated in October 2006 under Indian Companies Act 1956.
The plan to construct dedicated freight
corridors across the country marks a strategic inflexion point in the
history of Indian Railways that has essentially run mixed traffic
across its network. Once completed, the dedicated freight corridors
will enable Indian Railways to improve its customer orientation and
meet market needs more effectively. Creation of rail infrastructure
on such a scale - unprecedented in independent India – is also
expected to drive the establishment of industrial corridors and
logistic parks along its alignment.
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