Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal on Monday has directed senior officials the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India Ltd (DFCCIL) to initiate measures to speed up construction of dedicated freight corridors compensate for the time lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minister also asked for quick identification of the most challenging areas of the project and their resolution. He suggested encouraging young minds to arrive at the best possible solutions.
Goyal made these observations while reviewing the DFCCIL progress.
It is expected that Western Corridor connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Maharashtra and the Eastern Corridor starting from Sahnewal in Punjab to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal shall be completed by December 2021.
During the meeting, it was decided that strict monitoring of work by all contractors will be undertaken. It was also decided to work on the resolution of all issues, including coordination with the states, on a mission mode and evolving of innovative mechanisms to constantly monitor the weekly progress of the project.
The dedicated freight corridors are among one of the largest rail infrastructure projects undertaken by the government. The overall cost is pegged at Rs 814.59 billion. DFCCIL was set up as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to undertake planning, development, mobilisation of financial resources, construction, maintenance and operation of dedicated freight corridors.
In the first phase, DFCCIL is constructing the Western DFC (1,504 route km) and Eastern DFC (1,856 route km) spanning a total length of 3,360 route km.