India News | DFCCIL Commissions to Key Railway Routes on Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor

New Delhi, Jun 15 (PTI) The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) on Thursday commissioned the 27 km Ahraura-Deen Dayal Upadhyay station leg of the Eastern DFC, providing seamless connectivity between Sonnagar in Bihar to Sanand in Gujarat.

The first train on the newly commissioned section was run on Thursday.

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"With the completion of this critical stretch, seamless connectivity from Sonnagar (Bihar) to Sanand (Gujarat) of 1,875 km length is established. This feat represents a monumental achievement for the project as it paves the way for enhanced efficiency, reduced transit time, and increased capacity for freight transportation," a statement from DFCCIL said.

This connectivity will now make transit of coal from coal fields of eastern India to power plants of northern India entirely on the DFC (dedicated freight corridor) route from Sonnagar to Dadri.

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"Transportation time is expected to be reduced to half as coal trains will completely avoid the congested routes of Indian Railways. This will lead to saving of approximately one day which in turn will reduce the turnround time of precious rakes for coal transportation," the statement said.

It also said that one of the biggest challenges in this work was connecting the yard of Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) station. This yard has 490 routes, 100 points and seven lines. DDU is the largest railway yard of Asia and was acting as the biggest bottleneck as the connectivity on either ends of DDU was already complete and trains had to cross the DDU Junction.

The commissioning of Dagmagpur to Bhaupur (Kanpur) route of DFC has already provided a major relief to the railways.

The punctuality of passenger trains with North Central Railway has improved significantly with DFC shouldering the major load of freight trains. Now, with commissioning of Ahraura Road to DDU, punctuality will improve even further with the benefits trickling further to East Central Railway.

DFC commissioning will also provide more time for maintenance of highly overloaded railway tracks, thereby enhancing the safety architecture over the Indian Railways, the statement said.

The statement also said that the DFC has completed an 80 km stretch of Shambhu to Sahnewal (Ludhiana).

As of today, 2,196 route KM, that is, 77.2 per cent of the DFC has been commissioned.

DFC alignment, except JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust) connectivity, is expected to be commissioned next year.

DFC is a vital cog in the National Logistics Policy which aims to reduce the cost of logistics from 15 per cent (approximately) of the country's GDP to 8 per cent by 2030.

The Dedicated Freight Corridor, one of the largest rail infrastructure projects in the country, aims to create a high-speed and high-capacity freight transportation network between Ludhiana in Punjab and Sonnagar in Bihar.

Spanning approximately 1,300 kilometers, the EDFC (Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor) is designed to revolutionise the freight transportation sector in the country.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)