Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Wednesday announced in the Lok Sabha the creation of a dedicated freight corridor at a cost of Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion). Work on the 9,260 km corridor is expected to be completed over the next five to seven years.
The railways planned to float route-specific special purpose companies for implementing the project, said an official adding that the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) would be the nodal agency for the work.
The corridor will be funded through internal generation, public-private participation, market borrowings and budgetary support.
Tracks will be upgraded to carry 12,000 tonne freight trains. Wagons will be improved to carry 4 tonne more load. The tracks will also be able to carry double stack container trains. "The objective will be to run heavy haul and longer trains," said an official.
The completion of the project will bring in an additional Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) into the railway kitty through higher earnings from freight traffic.
The corridor is aimed at arresting the flow of freight traffic to national highways which have been upgraded under the National Highways Development Project.
The corridor will be constructed along the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) linking Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. The existing railway network on GQ has double track but carries both passenger and freight trains.
"With the railways giving priority to passenger trains, the speed of freight trains gets considerably reduced," said an official. Officials said the carrying capacity of the existing railway track had been improved through Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) investment over the last 20 years.
Members in the Lok Sabha earlier demanded better facilities for passengers, modernisation of railway tracks and bringing remote and backward areas on the railway map.
Participating in a discussion on the demands for grants for railways, the members wanted the railway minister to ensure that rail development in all states progressed uniformly.
Later in the evening, the Lok Sabha passed the demands for grants for railways for 2005-06 by a voice vote with Prasad assuring the House that all pending projects would be completed at the earliest.
"We need about Rs 46,000 crore (Rs 460 billion) to complete the projects which include modernisation, electrification and metro railway among others. We shall make all efforts to complete these projects from internal resources," Prasad said replying to a brief debate.
He said his ministry had already issued instructions to implement policies announced in the budget and added all projects would be monitored strictly to complete them in a time-bound manner.
The railway minister said due to good financial state of the ministry, it would be able to pay deferred dividend liabilities in eight years instead of nine.
All the cut-motions were rejected and the grants were passed by a voice vote.
On track
