Title - Uttar Pradesh Govt takes step ahead on Dedicated Freight Corridor

Lucknow : In a significant move to accelerate the implementation of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project, Uttar Pradesh monitoring committee for the project met here today when Chief Secretary Javed Usmani directed the officials to ensure the time-bound clearances and resolution of issues pertaining to land acquisition in this connection.Apart from senior officials of the departments concerned, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) was represented by Director-project planning Anshuman Sharma.The Chief Secretary said, "The work on DFC should not face any hurdles at any level of State government, time-bound compliance of actions required for expediting the project should be ensured." Earlier, Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner (IIDC) Anil Kumar Gupta held discussions with Director-operations P N Shukla, DFCCIL on identification of locations and development of multi-modal logistics parks (MMLPs), to begin with, in Kanpur and later on along the DFC route in other industrially and economically suitable towns.IIDC has issued directions to District Magistrates and UP State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) to coordinate with DFCC officials to identify areas belonging to UPSIDC which fall on the alignment of DFC.IIDC assured DFCC officials of smooth highway and power linkages for the proposed project development, Mr Gupta said.

Anchor project of ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), 1,839 Km multi-modal high axle-load eastern dedicated freight (rail) corridor (DFC) envisages linking Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal with around 1000 Km passing through Uttar Pradesh from Saharanpur to Chandauli.

Eastern DFC, an absolutely new access-controlled rail network is proposed to be built exclusively to carry freight in containerised compartments as extant rail networks are saturated.

The high-speed trains will run at 100 Kmph with around 15 junctions along its alignment. These junctions will be connected to existing railway stations and highways.

About 17-18 Km of alignment of 1499 km long Western Dedicated Freight corridor falls in Gautambudh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh. This part will connect the state to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (Mumbai).

DFCC Director-operations P N Shukla informed that eastern DFC was expected to be functional in 2015-16.

Elaborating on DFC and logistics hubs, he said, freight was directly linked to economic growth, especially in the development of capacity building in core sectors like power houses, fertilizer, food grains, and POL (petroleum, oil, liquid) movement including export import.

MMLPs have been envisaged to be wholesome logistics solution including transport, warehousing, cold chains, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), supply chains and logistics towns.

"In the long run, multi-modal logistics parks will become nodes of increased economic activity not only for industrial goods but for safe and quick transportation, storage and marketing of agri-products, thus benefitting farmers of this agrarian state," said DFCC Director, Mr Shukla.