Gujarat Ports' Freight Traffic Will Shift to Dedicated Freight Corridor by Next Year

Jaipur: Freight traffic from Gujarat ports will be shifted to dedicated freight corridor after September next year, with the completion of works on the Dadri (Uttar Pradesh) to Palanpur stretch.

The work on Madar (Ajmer) to Marwar junction (Pali) is scheduled to be completed by March 2019, and under the next phase, by September 2019, Palanpur (Gujarat) will be connected, said Anurag Sachan, MD of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India.

"When the work till Palanpur will be completed by September 2019, freight from ports like Mundra will be shifted to the dedicated corridor and the entire traffic of ports will move through the corridor," Sachan said.

The work on the mega project having two — eastern and western — dedicated freight corridors is going on and 99 per cent of land acquisition has been completed.

"The project running in 3,300 km and passing through nine states and 64 district had a big issue of land acquisition but 99 per cent land has been acquired and we are moving on the right track. In order to push the work, we are completing different sections in phase manner," he told reporters at New Sakhun railway station near Jaipur after flagging off a trial train on Madar - New Rewari — Kishangarh Balawas (Haryana) stretch.

After the commissioning of the project by 2020, nearly 400 MT of the goods will move through the corridor which will reduce the time of transportation and enhance the punctuality of passenger trains as the goods train will run on the dedicated lines.

Not only the Railway's goods trains, he said, private operators would also be allowed to operate their rolling stock on the paths in the dedicated freight corridor.

The trial train ran on 306-km long section in the first phase of the western corridor. This section is provided with 9 newly built freight stations consisting of six crossing stations and three Junction stations.

Earlier, DFCCIL had completed the 194 Km section from Bhadan to Khurja (Uttar Pradesh) of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) last month.