December 03, 2008

Indian Railways hopes for bigger pie of goods traffic with DFC

BL reported that Indian Railways hopes to grab larger share of goods once the dedicated freight corridor becomes operational.

Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav union railway minister said that "Work on the Delhi Mumbai and Ludhiana Howrah section of the DFC will begin soon as the project is important for us. This will help railways in carrying 60% of goods that are currently transported by roads."

Mr Yadav said that various leading financial institutions such as World Bank and ADB have been coming forward to financially support it. He added that "We are also planning to extend the DFC from Mumbai to Kolkata via Chennai in the second phase. We will never allow PPP in our core functioning. But there are many other areas where we are allowing PPP model."