Corridors to the Future

The infra thrust through dedicated freight corridors will propel India towards becoming a global industrial hub

- MANISH PANT

AS SOME PARTS of India reeled under massive power outages in April 2022 due to a sharp decline in coal stocks at some of the country’s biggest thermal power plants, one of the government’s recent infrastructure projects—dedicated freight corridors (DFCs)—came to the rescue. Using the DFCs, the government rushed coal from mines in the eastern part of the country to places in the North and West, saving the day. This incident, among others, has firmed up the government’s resolve to expedite work on the under-construction DFCs. In fact, with a substantial part of the work on the DFCs nearing completion by the year-end, the government is examining a proposal to establish a network of such corridors.

But the infrastructure project, with multiple such corridors, has had its fair share of challenges. Conceived in 2006, the project has received five extensions after missing several deadlines in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022. And in 17 years, the project outlay—initially estimated at ₹21,140 crore—has been enhanced to ₹1.24 lakh crore.

“About 90 per cent of the construction work on the western and eastern dedicated freight corridors will be completed by December 2023,” Ravindra Kumar Jain, MD of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL), told BT recently. He attributed the slowdown in construction to the pandemic-induced challenges, delays in environmental clearances, illegal encroachments and local agitations holding up land acquisition.