Title - Uttar Pradesh initiates work on freight corridor

Lucknow : Aiming to accelerate implementation of the ambitious eastern dedicated freight corridor (DFC) project, the Uttar Pradesh government Friday directed officials to ensure time-bound clearances and resolution of land acquisition-related issues.The state monitoring committee for the DFC met Friday and discussed various issues."The work on DFC should not face any hurdles at any level of state government, and time-bound compliance of actions required for expediting the project should be ensured," Chief Secretary Jawed Usmani said.Earlier, Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner Anil K. Gupta held discussions with P.N. Shukla, director-operations, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd.(DFCCIL), on identification of locations and development of multi-modal logistics parks (MMLPs), to begin with, in Kanpur."If Uttar Pradesh leg of eastern dedicated freight corridor passes through or beside industrial estates of UPSIDC that would certainly help in easily identifying and utilising land for multi-modal logistics hub locations," said Gupta.The IIDC has issued directions to district magistrates and U.P. State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) to coordinate with DFCC officials to identify areas belonging to UPSIDC which fall on the alignment of DFC.

Anchor project of ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the 1,839 km multi-modal high axle-load eastern dedicated freight (rail) corridor (DFC) envisages linking Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in Paschim Bongo (West Bengal) with around 1,000 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.