Piyush Goyal suggests measures to fast-track Dedicated Freight Corridor project
02 Sep 2020
Railway minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday suggested a slew of measures: to fast track the Dedicated Freight Corridor project by closely monitoring the progress of work on both the western and eastern corridors.
Addressing a review meeting attended by top officials of Railway Board, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL), and contractors, Goyal sought to know the progress of each individual section in detail, and issued instructions to ensure smooth progress by resolving all impediments.
Goyal directed the DFFCIL management team and the contractors to take all possible steps to speed up the pace of works on all the sections of the Western DFC and Eastern DFC.
The Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects with a total length of 3,360 route km (Western DFC 1,504 route km) and (Eastern DFC 1,856 route km) undertaken by the government. The overall cost is pegged at Rs81,459 crore.
In order to fast track the project, the railway minister suggested a slew of measures, including:
- Holding regular weekly meetings with all contractors, vendors, and suppliers;
- Working on the possibility of offering some kind of incentives to contractors willing to take up and finish their work before the stipulated time frames;
- Creation of a dashboard by DFCCIL for real-time 'Km by Km' project monitoring and follow-up. This would also be accessible to the Railway Board officials. The provision of dashboard will help in the resolution of all contract implementation matters on an urgent basis and would also act as an Institutional mechanism for resolving contract related issues.
The meeting decided on strict monitoring of the work of all contractors and resolution of all issues, including coordination with the states on a mission mode. The railway ministry has already written letters to all the concerned states to resolve the pending issues of land, ROBs, and law and order.
Railways Freight loading in August 2020 surpassed last year's loading for the same month, gaining from the low passer train traffic.
Railways freight loading stood at 94.33 million tonnes 3.31 million tonnes higher compared to last year's loading of 91.02 million tonnes in the same month.
This included 40.49 million tonnes of coal, 12.46 million tonnes of iron ore, 6.24 million tonnes of foodgrains, 5.32 million tonnes of fertilizers, 4.63 million tonnes of cement (excluding clinker), and 3.2 million tonnes of mineral oil.