Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 351 km long New Bhaupur (near Kanpur) and New Khurja section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. The 351-km section has been built at a cost of Rs 5750 crore.
This follows the Centre’s plan to increase railway’s share in goods transport to 45 per cent according the National Rail Plan unveiled a few days ago.
Speaking on the occasion Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “ I congratulate Uttar Pradesh and other states as well as Indian Railways employees for the new facility of the Dedicated Freight Corridor.The Freight Corridor will give new energy to the less industrially developed eastern region of India. Businesses and farmers will benefit from the new DFC. 1,100 km of work on the Dedicated Freight Corridor was done in 6 years and will be completed in the next few months.”
“We invested in the railway network, eliminated level crossings, focused on electrification and quadrupling of railway lines. Indian Railways is now far safer than before.Indian Railways, which is often targeted, comes to the aid of the public during times of national difficulty,” he added.
Two fully loaded freight trains hauled by Alstom’s WAG 12B Locomotives (Loco Number 60039 from New Bhaupur and Loco Number 60070 from New Khurja), each carrying more than 10,00 tonnes of coal and food grains were flagged off from New Bhaupur and New Khurja respectively.
As on date, two dedicated freight corridors- the EDFC between Ludhiana in Punjab and Dankuni in West Bengal and the Western DFC between Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and JNPT in Maharashtra are being built. Also being built is a connector section between Khurja and Rewari to connect the EDFC with WDFC.
PM Modi also inuagurated via videoconferencing the state of the art Operational Control Centre at Prayagraj. This is the command centre for EDFC set up for effective control of train operations.
New Bhaupur- New Khurja
EDFC’s first section between New Bhaupur-New Khurja inaugurated on Tuesday will decongest rail traffic in India’s busiest rail section between Khurja and Kanpur.
The new stations in this section are Bhaupur, Kanchausi, Achalda, Ekdil, Bhadan, Makhanpur, Tundla, Hathras, Daud Khan and Khurja. This section passes through Kanpur Dehat, Auraiya, Etawah, Firozabad, Hathras, Aligarh and Bulandshahr districts of Uttar Pradesh.
The average speed of trains will increase from the existing 25-30 kmph to 65-70 kmph. Long haul goods trains with 25 ton axle load will run the EDFC. Also run will be double stack container cargo trains. The section consists of 19 major bridges , 414 minor bridges, and seven rail flyovers to avoid detention of goods trains en route. As many as 68 level crossings have been eliminated in this stretch for augmenting speed and safety.
Benefits
This will enhance connectivity for the industry agriculture and dairy sectors along the route. Kisan Rail would be the biggest beneficiary of this DFC with faster delivery of agricultural produce from production centres to the end consumer, especially vegetables and fruits according to a statement from Indian Railways.
Industries which will benefit by the EDFC are the glassware of Firozabad, lock producers of Aligarh,textile and block printing industries of Etawah district, leather industries of Agra and Kanpur, Aluminium indistry of Pukhrayan, dairy industry of Auraiya, Hathras district’s Asafoetida (Heeng) business, potteries of Khurja and the carpets of Bhadohi/Mirzapur belt.
