Continued from Volume V, Issue No. 49…
The Dedicated Freight Corridor is proposed to be completed in a time frame of 5 years through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). Since DFC would be complementary and not competitive corridor to Indian Railways as most of the traffic would continue to originate and terminate on Indian Railway’s network it will be under the administrative control of Ministry of Railways.
The dedicated freight corridors will cover 10 states of India with maximum investment and track length in Uttar Pradesh. The table below provides approximate State wise length of track and cost of DFC on both western and eastern routes:
Map of Western Freight Corridor
Western Freight Corridor (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor)
The 1,469-km-long dedicated western freight corridor, linking Jawaharlal Nehru port to Dadri near Delhi, is expected to be completed in 2011 at a cost of Rs 11,446 crore. Fit for double stock container train movement, the corridor will be routed through Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur and Rewari.
The western corridor will carry container traffic from the western ports to destinations in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and the eastern corridor will mostly carry coal and steel cargoes. The movement of trains with computerized control system will considerably reduce cost of operations, which is expected to benefit the industry and thermal power plants. Top
The western corridor is known as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). DMIC has been designed to transform it into a Global Manufacturing and Trading Hub. This will be the biggest infrastructural project ever undertaken in the country. The government has also doubled the investment funds for the project from $50 billion to $90 billion (Rs 3,60,000 crore). The mega project will be developed with Japanese assistance and includes the development of an industrial infrastructure between Delhi and Mumbai which would run parallel to the 1,483-km railway freight corridor.
The corridor will be spread over an area of 4,00,000 sq. km and will be fully furnished with world-class roads, port and airport connectivity, power supply and multi-modal transport hubs. It will be 1,483 km long and 300 km wide. As per the rules of the mega infrastructural projects in the country, this industrial corridor would have to be constructed through public-private partnership.
It would significantly improve Indo-Japanese trade and economic relation. On the domestic front the project is expected to bring about a major expansion of infrastructure and industry in the states along the route of the corridor. The industrial corridor will cover six states namely, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. It will also link 10 cities with more than 10 lakh population each which include Faridabad, Surat, Delhi, Greater Mumbai, Meerut, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Pune and Nashik.
The corridor project will involve the upgradation of key airports, setting up of food processing parks, ports on the west coast and power plants. The industrial corridor will have three green field ports, six airports and a 4,000-megawatt power plant. The corridor will encompass many special economic zones (SEZs), for which tax sops are given by the government. The Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor will be constructed along the major transport facilities like highways, passenger train connectivity and rail freight corridors so as to facilitate imports and exports. Top
As per the proposed plan, the development of the industrial corridor will be undertaken in two phases. The first phase will be from 2008-2012 while the second phase will be from 2012-2016. Phase I will include the setting up of one investment region (IR) of about 200 sq. km and one industrial area (IA) of smaller sizes in each of the five states. Although, the corridor would pass through the six states, the national capital, Delhi which is also included in the six states, will not be able to enjoy the benefits of industrial development due to scarcity of land.
The industry department has planned to develop investment regions that will be spread over at least 200 sq. km, and an industrial area of 100 sq. km. The major economic activities will thus take place over these spaces. As of now, the industry department has identified 5 investment regions and 5 industrial regions for phase I of the project.
The table below shows the investment regions and industrial areas.
Investment Regions
Industrial Areas
Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad
Meerut-Muzaffarnagar
Manesar-Bawal
Faridabad-Palwal
Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemrana
Vadodara-Ankleshwar
Ahmedabad-Dholera
Alewadi/Dighi Port
Igatpuri-Nashik-Sinnar
Jaipur-Dausa
The investment regions and industrial areas have been identified for specific purposes. The investment regions, Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad are identified for general manufacturing, Manesar-Bawal for auto components, Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemrana for general manufacturing, Pitampura-Dhar-Mhow, Bharuch-Dahej for petroleum and chemicals and Igatpuri-Nashik-Sinnar for general manufacturing. While the industrial areas that have been short-listed for purposes include Meerut-Muzaffarnagar for engineering, Faridabad-Palwal for manufacturing, Jaipur-Dausa for marble/leather/textiles, and Neemuch-Nayagaon, Vadodara-Ankleshwar and Alewadi/Dighi in Maharashtra..
to be continued..............
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