Railways likely to defer freight corridor by 2 yrs
The 540-km-long section of the corridor from Sonnagar in Bihar to Dankuni in Bengal has to come up on a public-private partnership model. But being a big-ticket railway project with an investment of around R15,000 crore, it will also be hard for the Railways to find a private partner to invest in the project.
“Though there’s a steering committee to clear land acquisition issues, it could still take time. Finding a private player for such a big project can also take time. We are breaking the 540-km-long section into two parts,” the official added.
The stretch, which is an extension of the eastern freight corridor, is expected to primarily carry coal and iron ore traffic in the Dhanbad, Jharia and Raniganj region.
The dedicated freight corridor corporation (DFCC), a special purpose vehicle under the rail ministry, has acquired approximately 8,000 hectares of land over nine states and 61 districts in a span of less than three years without any major upheaval. The speed has been spurred by the fact that land acquisition is one of the preconditions for funds from the World Bank and Japan Industrial Cooperation Agency (JICA), the agencies funding the eastern and western corridors, respectively.
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