The Hindu Business Line : Dedicated Freight Corridor: Carrying benefits to the hinterland

Covering about a dozen SEZs on its route, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor will use the high-speed Freight Corridor to transport finished goods to Mumbai or other west-coast ports for export, and elsewhere in the vast Indian sub-continent.

R. C. Acharya

Mumbai enjoys the distinction of perhaps the only city in the world which has grown along a Railway system — in this case, not one but two of them! The GIP (Great Indian Peninsula) Railway and the BB&CI (Bombay Baroda and Central India) Railways, which had set up shop in the 1850s, were the catalyst for the City’s phenomenal growth over the next 150 years, and continue to drive its development even now.

History repeats itself as the 1,483-km long Dedicated Freight Corridor along the Western Railway’s alignment goes into operation by 2013. In this case, however, development along the route will not wait for completion of the line, but will simultaneously see the DMIC (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) taking shape to utilise the high speed rail network to transport finished goods to Mumbai or other west coast ports for exports, and elsewhere in the vast Indian sub-continent.

Involving about a dozen SEZs (Special Economic Zones) each in Phase I and Phase II, it will usher in an era of unprecedented growth in the beneficiary States — the NCR, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Being developed entirely in the joint sector, with participation of such big names as Reliance, etc., the proposed SEZs will also have six logistics parks, including container depots. The western sector will have four — at Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Vapi, and NCR (Rewari) — while two will come up on the eastern sector near Ludhiana and Kanpur, owned and managed by DFCC, again as joint ventures.

Export Promotion Zones

India’s first EPZ (Export Promotion Zone at Kandla) was created as early as in 1965, followed by SEPZ (Santacruz Export Promtion Zone) in 1973, five more at Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Falta (West Bengal), Cochin (Kerala), Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) in the 1980s.

The last one, at Surat, especially set up for precious stones, became operational in 1998, but the EPZs’ growth has been dismal, with their contribution to foreign exchange earnings remaining at less than 5 per cent!

The concept itself received little encouragement from successive governments, perhaps under pressure from the indigenous manufacturers, till the story of the Asian tigers and, in particular, the phenomenal economic growth made possible by a string of SEZs in China got the North block mandarins to sit up and take note.

World over, from 176 zones across 47 countries in 1986, the EPZ phenomenon has grown to over 3,000, across 116 countries, by 2003, a very large number of them being in developing countries, and it was about time India joined the race.

With the launch of the Exim Policy, 2000, SEZs in India became the flavour of the season. Under this scheme the EPZs at Kandla, Santa Cruz, Cochin and Surat were converted into SEZs and, by 2003, other EPZs at Noida, Falta, Chennai and Vizag were also similarly converted.

In addition, now approval has been given for setting up of 26 new SEZs in various parts of the country, which include the ones at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal which have, of late, been in the news for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, the ones in the DMIC appear so far to have had smooth sailing and are likely to be operational as per the schedule

DMIC Corporation has ambitious plans to set up a 4,000-MW power plant, three greenfield ports and six airports. It will also link 10 cities with an over 10 lakh (1 million) population, including Faridabad, Surat, Delhi, Greater Mumbai, Meerut, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune and Nashik.

Industrial corridor

A 150-km broad swath on both sides of the proposed rail corridor, which is proposed to be developed as the “industrial corridor”, will, in the first phase of its implementation, see the creation of four industrial nodes — Palanpur-Mehsana, Ahmedabad-Dhoera, Vadodara-Ankleshwar and Bharuch-Dahej — while two more such nodes will be established between Surat and Jazira, Valsad and Umargam in the second phase. It is proposed to develop these industrial nodes as “global manufacturing hubs”

In the meantime, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCC) is chugging along hoping to appoint a business plan consultant very soon, while, of the 18 quotes received for the general consultant for construction work on the 105-km stretch from Mughalsarai to Sonnagar, companies grouped into three consortia have been short-listed, with lead players Mott McDonald, Parsons, or RITES.

Though adequate land for laying another pair of tracks is available along the existing right-of-way on both the western and eastern routes, at least 60 per cent of the eastern route involves detours when passing through major cities and station yards; thus, land acquisition will be the main stumbling block in speedy implementation of the DFC project.

However, instead of waiting for all the pieces of the vast jigsaw puzzle falling in place, DFC Corporation has boldly ventured forth with finalising the contract for work on sections such the Kanpur-Aligarh, where no land acquisition is involved. Simultaneously, tenders for 32 bridges of various sizes, which have a long gestation period, are planned to be finalised by April next year.

Under the guidelines of the land acquisition policy of 2008, almost 80 per cent of the officers have been appointed and, taking a page form the NHAI (National Highways Authority of India), most of these are from the respective State’s revenue departments. Their being familiar with and having easy access to the local land records, this in itself means half the battle is won!

(The author is a former Member (Mechnical), Railway Board.)

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