The Hindu Business Line : `Freight corridor must be linked to ports'

The spokesman reacted sharply to the Railway Budgetannouncement that the proposed eastern freight corridor would stop at Sonnagar, which is far away from the Kolkata port (including Haldia).

He wondered if such a truncated corridor would serve any purpose, except perhaps political goals.

Freight corridors worldwide are linked to ports, and therefore, the connectivity to ports always receives top priority in most of the developed countries, he said.

He was not sure where the freight traffic from North India would head to after reaching Sonnagar.

As a station midway, Sonnagar could certainly not be the last point in a freight corridor designed to move large volumes of freight traffic across the country. Logically, a freight corridor, should end at a major port.

Traders stand to lose

By constructing a much shorter freight corridor in the East compared to the one in the West, the Railways would be depriving traders of the benefits of a full length corridor.

The prospects of a booming containerised traffic to and from the Far East and routed through the east coast ports of Koklata/Haldia, Paradip and Visakhapatnam would be nipped in the bud, unless the Railways changed its mind.

The container handling capacity is proposed to be increased in existing ports such as Kolkata/Haldia and Paradip. Also, new ports such as Dhamra, Gopalpur and Saugor and deep-sea ports in West Bengal have plans to install modern container handling facilities.

All these ports are pinning a good deal of hope on the proposed eastern freight corridor to attract containerised traffic to and from the northern region.

The capacity of the Ghat section on the Grand Chord section of the Eastern Railway is already saturated.

There's hardly any scope for laying new lines there because of the undulating topography.

Thus, the Railways must find alternative routes to handle the rising volume of traffic in coming years and the freight corridor would have been ideally suited for this purpose.

How could the Railways, while planning a freight corridor in the East, miss out on such a vital matter? the spokesman wondered.