19.6.11

DFCCIL

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp India (DFCCIL), promoting the $17-billion rail freight corridor project, has decided that its 1,490-km western part will be executed by a joint venture between Indian and Japanese infrastructure developers selected through a bidding process. “The bidding process for Rs. 6,000 crore ($1.3 billion) phase-I development is expected to start in mid-June when we will invite pre-qualification bids from interested companies,” said PN Shukla, director-operations & business development, DFCCIL said. The $6.7-billion western part of the dedicated rail freight corridor will be executed in two phases, he said. Bidding will be invited only for the first phase now which is a 1,000-km stretch between Rewari in Haryana to Vadodara in Gujarat, he added. Balance 490-km stretch would be completed in the second phase. The entire 3,300-km dedicated rail corridor is divided in two parts, western and eastern. The Indian and Japanese joint venture model is being implemented only in the western part which is funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). DFCCIL may develop a different model for execution of the eastern part in consultation with its funding agency, the World Bank. The dedicated freight corridor project aims to build new tracks to transport containers and commodities at a maximum speed of 100 km an hour, reducing travel time by a third. It will also enable Indian Railways to recapture market share it lost to the trucking sector, which has among the lowest road freight tariffs in the world. Shukla said the first 1,000-km stretch of the western part of the corridor could be developed by more than one companies. “Land acquisition has been completed for 90% of the stretch and work on the 650-km line extending from Rewari in Haryana to Iqbalgarh in Gujarat is expected to begin by March 2012,” he said. “Bidders would be selected on the basis of their technical soundness and financial standing,” said Shukla. The 1,835-km eastern corridor stretching from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Dankuni in West Bengal would be developed in two phases. While 403 km of track would consist of single line, the 1,432 km would be double line, he said. The land requirement for the corridor has been estimated to be about 4,800 hectares.

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