Freight corridor’s cost triples in six years
Centre blames new land law for spike in cost
New Delhi: The cost of the ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) has escalated to a whopping Rs 80,000 crore from the initial estimate of Rs 27,000 crore largely due to higher land acquisition cost. The Railway Board chairman (CRB) Arunendra Kumar on Friday said that the cost has spiraled in the last five to six years due to “genuine” reasons.
“The initial cost of DFC was estimated to be at around Rs 27,000 crore. But now it has touched over Rs 80,000 crore in the span of 5-6 years due to various genuine reasons. Initially, Rs 12,000 was budgeted for land acquisition but later on it multiplied several times,” said Mr Kumar at a FICCI function on Friday.
The board member Alok Johri also stated that the land acquisition after the new land acquisition act meant hefty premium has to be paid for acquisition of land.
He, however, added that the railways would overcome the cost challenge. The Centre has recently stated that the acquiring land has become a tough task following the enactment of the Land Acquisition Act. However, Mr Kumar stated that the project is on track, which will ensure speedy movement of the goods wagons.
Railway Board member Alok Johri said that contracts for the eastern corridor (Ludhiyana to Dankuni near Kolkata) have been awarded. He added that the DFC roll out would begin from 2016-17.
The 1,760-km long Eastern DFC and 1,468-km Western DFC corridors are being constructed for exclusive freight movement. It’s also a major infra project, which is likely to give a major boost to the economy. Mr Johri added that high horsepower locomotives, new design wagons and double stack containers will be operational on the DFC.
The CRB maintained that “if DFC does well we will get more corridors and get more money and it will bring down costs and enhance the technological levels of rail operation”.
The CRB also added that the railways on the directions of the Prime Minister is sticking to the goals to achieve the objective that “you reduce the transportation cost and reduce it substantially, not in tits and bits”.