Saturday, May 30, 2015

DFCC to award Rs 26,000-cr contracts this fiscal

DFCC MD Adesh Sharma
THE Indian Railways’ arm implementing the ambitious freight corridor project, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC), is planning to award contracts worth Rs 26,000 crore in the current fiscal (2015-16). The move aims at expediting work and meet the deadline for commissioning the Rs 81,000 crore project.
“In 2015-16 we want to finalise all the contracts as the entire funding for the project has been tied up. Five contracts worth Rs 8,000 crore for the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) and nine contracts worth Rs 18,000 crore for the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) are to be awarded this fiscal,” a...
business daily quoted DFCC managing director Adesh Sharma as saying.
For the construction of the EDFC, contracts worth Rs 4,000 crore were awarded in 2013 followed by another Rs 5,000 crore contract last year.
“The additional five contracts this year would be for signaling and telecommunication, electrification and civil construction. Similarly, for WDFC, in order to meet the deadline we will award the nine contracts for electrification, signaling, track works and civil works,” Sharma said.
DFCC had awarded a Rs 7,000 crore contract for the 650-km Rewari and Palanpur section in August 2013.
Later, a Rs 4,000-crore contract placed last year for electrification between the Rewari and Vadodara stretch.
The Golden Quadrilateral linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Howrah – and its two diagonals Delhi-Chennai and Mumbai-Howrah – accounts for only 18% of the Indian Railways’ network but carries more than 58% of revenue-earning freight traffic.
The existing routes of Howrah-Delhi on the Eastern Corridor and Mumbai-Delhi on the Western corridor are highly saturated creating the need for dedicated routes.
DFCC is currently constructing the 3,350-km-long freight corridor project including 1,800 Km as its Eastern arm between Ludhiana and Dankuni in West Bengal.
The Eastern DFC comprises three phases -- Ludhiana to Mughalsarai, Mughalsarai to Sonnagar and Sonnagar to Dankuni.
The Western DFC will come up between Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai. The project, when commissioned in 2019, would take up more than 70% of the Indian Railways freight traffic on to its faster, longer and heavier trains.
The Eastern DFC accounts for around 40% of the total project cost. Phase I of the project between Khurja and Mughalsarai is being funded through 66% debt from World Bank and the rest as equity from the rail ministry.
The Phase II corridor between Mughalsarai and Sonnagar is being funded entirely through the government equity while the third phase between Sonnagar and Dankuni is to be developed on PPP mode.
Japan is providing a Special Terms of Economic Partnership (STEP) loan of 677 billion yen extended on soft terms for forty years with a moratorium of 10 years.
The World Bank is also providing financial aid for the ambitious infra project.
The first tranche of the loan for 90.2 billion yen for construction between Rewari and Vadodara and additional 266 billion yen for funding Phase II (Vadodara-JNPT) of the Corridor has been signed.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India is a special purpose vehicle set up under the administrative control of Ministry of Railways to undertake planning & development, mobilization of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the Dedicated Freight Corridors. DFCCIL was incorporated in October 2006 under Indian Companies Act 1956.
The plan to construct dedicated freight corridors across the country marks a strategic inflexion point in the history of Indian Railways that has essentially run mixed traffic across its network. Once completed, the dedicated freight corridors will enable Indian Railways to improve its customer orientation and meet market needs more effectively. Creation of rail infrastructure on such a scale - unprecedented in independent India – is also expected to drive the establishment of industrial corridors and logistic parks along its alignment.

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