The Railways is working on three more dedicated freight corridors at an estimated cost of about Rs. 2.6 lakh crore, which will help the national transporter to free up the current tracks to run enough passenger trains so that no traveller gets wait-listed.

Train travellers could expect to be free of waiting list within the four years on the two busiest routes of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes, where dedicated freight corridors (DFC) construction is under works and is expected to be completed by 2021, said Railway Board Chairman V.K. Yadav.

“This is our vision. When the DFC is completed.... the existing Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah route will be completely free of freight. Then we will be able to run passenger trains on demand. The work to upgrade [train speed] on the route to 160 kmph has already been sanctioned and will be done in the next four years,” he said.

“In the next four years, we will run freight and passenger trains on demand and this means we will meet traffic requirements. On these routes, in the next four years there will be no waiting.”

He also said work on the North-South (Delhi-Chennai), East-West (Mumbai-Howrah) and East Coast (Kharagpur-Vijayawada) DFC was under way and the final location survey would be completed in the next one year. The three DFCs would be around 6,000-km long and would be commissioned in the next 10 years. As per the preliminary report, the cost of the projects is estimated to be Rs. 2.6 lakh crore.

“When this is done we will have a lot of capacity and we will be able to run a lot of trains. So, by the time we have enough capacity we should be able to introduce private operators and corporatise production units, so that technologically advanced coaches fit to run trains at 160 kmph are available in the country and we are able to export them as well,” Mr. Yadav said.

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