The Hindu Business Line : Rail freight corridor may face hurdles in land procurement

New Delhi, Sept 28 The dedicated rail freight corridor (DFC) may hit a hurdle with those households that have to be resettled demanding market value for their land, which is several times higher compared to the land valuation estimated by the Government.

The construction of Eastern and Western corridor in the present alignment involves rehabilitating 3,000 households.

This emerged in a stakeholders meeting held by the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) study team here in Delhi on Thursday. JICA, which has held several such stakeholder meetings in various locations, said that there is massive difference between the cost of land as estimated by the Government records and the “market level cost of land” put forth by the stakeholders.

“In Gujarat, there are cases where there is a 23.5 times difference between the market value of land and that registered in Government records. In several other cases, the market value of land is at least 3-5 times higher than the value of land as per Government records,” said Mr Shusuke Minato, Head-Environmental Department, JICA study team, while addressing the stakeholders here.

“The households want compensation for land based on market price or another piece of land, job opportunities, payment of compensation before resettlement, building of road over bridges and prevention of noise pollution,” said Mr Minota.

On the Eastern corridor, 612 villages would be affected, while on the Western corridor 624 villages would be affected in the proposed route alignment.

JICA REPORT

JICA, which recently submitted its final draft report to the Railway Ministry, estimates the total cost of DFC at about Rs 50,000 crore. Compared to Indian Railways’ estimates of Rs 28,000 crore for the Eastern corridor and Western corridor, JICA’s estimates are higher primarily because JICA has included the cost of rolling stock in the project which Railways has not.

Moreover, JICA has also included the entire cost of building road over bridges (RoBs) where as the Railways has taken into account only half the cost of building RoBs since the cost of building RoBs is equally shared by both the Central Government and the State Government concerned. Additionally, there is some difference on account of the electric traction for Western corridor suggested by JICA.

JICA has been stressing for electric traction for the Western corridor while Railways wants diesel traction for the Eastern corridor. “The final report would be submitted by October-end,” Mr Patsuya Masuzawa PE, Deputy Team Leader, Project Management Unit, JICA study team, said. Saying that the project cost is likely to escalate than reduce, he said there could be some reduction if lesser locomotives were to be procured.

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