The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) is a public sector undertaking which undertakes planning, development, and mobilisation of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the ''"Dedicated Freight Corridors"'' (DFC). The DFCCIL was registered as a company under the

Companies Act 1956 The Companies Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of India, enacted in 1956, which enabled companies to be formed by registration, and set out the responsibilities of companies, their directors and secretaries. It was repealed and replaced ...

in 2006. First 2 DFCs, Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC), from Dadri in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 195 ...

to JNPT in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC),

Ludhiana Ludhiana ( ) is the most populous and the largest city in the Indian state of Punjab. The city has an estimated population of 1,618,879 2011 census and distributed over , making Ludhiana the most densely populated urban centre in the state. I ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

Dankuni Dankuni is a city and a municipality of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is now part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). It is considered posh area in Hooghly. Geography Location ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

, which will decongest railway network by moving 70% of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

's goods train to these two corridors, are both on track for completion by June 2022. 99% required land for these two have been acquired, and 56% of WDFC and 60% of EDFC is complete as of July 2020.Railways' two big ticket projects DFC, bullet train on track despite lockdown: Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav
Economic Times, 6 June 2020. There are new DFC approved/proposed in the national budget by

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

such as East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor,

North-South Dedicated Freight Corridor The North-South Dedicated Freight Corridor or North-South DFC is a proposed freight specific railway connecting New Delhi and Chennai. The approximate length of the corridor is 2,343 km with 43 proposed stations. Ministry of Railways has assigned ...

East Coast Dedicated Freight Corridor East Coast Dedicated Freight Corridor or East Coast DFC is a proposed freight specific railway in India under the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). It will be constructed by Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) of Indian Railwa ...

and Southern Dedicated Freight Corridor. It is both enabler and beneficiary of other key

schemes, such as Industrial corridor, Make in India, Startup India,

Standup India Stand-Up India was launched by Government of India on 5 April 2016 to support entrepreneurship among women and SC & ST communities. It is similar to but distinct from Startup India. Both are enabler and beneficiary of other key Government of In ...

Sagarmala The Sagarmala Programme () is an initiative by the Government of India to enhance the performance of the country's logistics sector. The programme envisages unlocking the potential of waterways and the coastline to minimize infrastructural inv ...

Bharatmala The Bharatmala Pariyojna ( 'India garland project') is an ecosystem of road development which includes development of tunnels, bridges, elevated corridors, flyovers, overpass, interchanges, bypasses, ring roads etc. to provide shortest, jam f ...

, UDAN-RCS, Digital India,

BharatNet BharatNet, also known as Bharat Broadband Network Limited, is a central public sector undertaking, set up by the Department of Telecommunications, a department under Ministry of Communications of the Government of India for the establishmen ...

, Parvatmala.

Historical perspective

In April 2005, wherein, India and Japan announced collaboration for feasibility and possible funding of the dedicated rail freight corridors, and RITES was entrusted with the feasibility study of both eastern and western corridors, followed by formation of a Planning Commission's Task Force to prepare a concept paper on Delhi-Mumbai (Western) and Delhi-

Howrah Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is ...

(Eastern) dedicated freight corridor projects, and to suggest a new organizational structure for planning, financing, construction and operation of these corridors. In January 2006, RITES submitted the Feasibility Study Report of both the corridors and Cabinet approved Task Force's report, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave "in principle" approval to the Feasibility Study report. Subsequently, RITES submitted the PETS Report based on which the project was approved at a cost of ₹28,181

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is eq ...

Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC)

Under the Eleventh Five Year Plan of India (2007–12), the Ministry of Railways started constructing a new Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) in two long routes, namely the Eastern and Western freight corridors. The two routes cover a total length of , with the ''Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor'' stretching from

and the ''Western Dedicated Freight Corridor'' from Jawaharlal Nehru Port in

(

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...

) to Dadri in

. Upgrading of transportation technology, increase in productivity and reduction in unit transportation cost are the focus areas for the project. DFCCIL has been designated by the

as a Govt. of India(Ministry of Railways) Enterprise, and has been created to undertake planning & development, mobilisation of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the Dedicated Freight Corridors. DFCCIL has been registered as a company under the Companies Act 1956 on 30 October 2006.

Need for DFC

The Indian Railways have witnessed higher freight volumes without substantial investment in infrastructure, increased axle load, reduction of turn-around time of

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles ca ...

, reduced unit cost of transportation, rationalization of tariffs resulting in improvement in market share and improved operational margins. Over the last 2 to 3 years, the railway freight traffic has grown by 8 to 11%, which is projected to cross 110

tonnes () by the end of 11th Five Year Plan.(Needs Updation)

Golden Quadrilateral Freight Corridor (GQFC)

GQFC has 6 DFCs, 2 are being implemented and the funding for the remaining 4 was approved in January 2018. The rail tracks linking four largest metropolitan cities of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

and two diagonals

(Delhi-

) and East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor (Kolkata-Mumbai) are called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQFC). These carry 55% of the India Railway's freight traffic over a total route length. The line capacity utilisation on the existing highly saturated shared trunk routes of Howrah-Delhi on the Eastern Corridor and Mumbai-Delhi on the Western Corridor varies between 115% to 150%. The surging requirement for the power generation requiring heavy coal movement, booming infrastructure construction and growing international trade has led to the conception of the GQFCs. Carbon emission reduction from DFCs will help DFCCIL claim carbon credits.

Summary table of DFCs

Green background for the systems that are under construction. Blue background for the systems that are currently in planning.

Conversion to high-speed corridors

Indian Railways plans to convert 10,000 km of passenger and freight trunk routes into high-speed rail corridors over 10 years with total investment of ₹20

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For e ...

crore (US$320 billion in 2019) and an annual investment of ₹2 lakh crore (US$32 billion in 2019) from 2017 to 2027, where half of the money will be spent on converting existing routes into high-speed corridors by leap-frogging the technology and the rest will be used to develop the stations and electronic signaling at the cost of ₹60 thousand crore (US$8.4 billion in 2020) to enable automated running of trains at a frequency of 5–6 minutes. Freight corridors of 3,300 km length will also be completed, freeing the dual use high demand trunk routes for running more high-speed passenger trains.Railways may invest Rs 20-lakh crore in high-speed corridors

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language bu ...

, 23 December 2017.

References

External links

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) Official Website

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) Official link for project status

DFCC will use New Track Construction machine having capacity of 1.5 KM of track per day

March 2014 news article stating near total land acquisition and environmental clearances
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Use dmy dates from July 2020 Dedicated freight corridors of India Railway companies of India Government-owned companies of India Proposed infrastructure in India 2006 establishments in Delhi Indian companies established in 2006