New Delhi: Coastal shipping in India will have received a minor setback, following the sanction accorded by the Railways Ministry for the construction of two high-speed dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) for freight trains running at speeds of 100 kmph.
The alignment for the Western DFC and Eastern DFC has been finalised. The 1,500 km long WDFC will start from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), pass through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana, and terminate at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh.
The 1,856 km long EDFC will start from Sahnewal near Ludhiana in Punjab, pass through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, and terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal, total length being 1,856 km.
The two DFCs will be completed by 2019. Preliminary engineering-cum-traffic surveys have also been taken up for the following four proposed DFCs:
East-West Corridor (Kolkata to Mumbai), traversing through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.
North-South Corridor (Delhi to Chennai), traversing through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
East Coast Corridor (Kharagpur to Vijaywada), traversing through West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
Southern Corridor (Chennai to Goa), traversing through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa.
