Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated and laid the foundation stones for infrastructure projects worth over Rs 35,000 crore in Gujarat. As part of the launch, he dedicated three completed sections of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC)—built at a cost of over Rs 20,700 crore and flagged off new freight services alongside a passenger train between Tanda Road and Vadodara.

The three sections of the 326 km route include New Sanand North-New Makarpura, New Umbergaon-New Saphale and New Saphale-New JNPT.

The WDFC would link Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai with Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri, intersecting with the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC), completing the country's dedicated freight rail backbone.

Meanwhile, the EDFC, which connects Sonnagar in West Bengal to Ludhiana in Punjab, is fully operational. Even as the corridor was initially planned from Dankuni in West Bengal, the 538-km stretch from Dankuni to Sonnagar was removed from the DFC project. The Indian railways are now implementing multi-tracking on this section.

As PM Modi would inaugurate the project today, the 2,843-km-long WDFC and EDFC network will become fully operational. The Prime Minister’s office said that the three stretches that PM Modi dedicated to the nation are New Sanand-New Makarpura, New Ambargaon-New Safale, and New Safale-New JNPT, spanning 326 km and built with an investment of over Rs 20,700 crore.

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Direct link to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port

The PMO claimed that the direct connection to Jawaharlal Nehru Port will accelerate the movement of import and export goods. The implementation will then strengthen connectivity between industrial centres and ports, reduce logistics costs, and help reduce congestion on Mumbai's railway network.

According to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, no physical work had been completed on the project before 2014. The Narendra Modi-led government has taken the project forward by addressing long-pending challenges and resolving issues in various sections.

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Around 5 Lakh Train Trips Handled

According to the railways, about 5.2 lakh freight train trips have been handled on the already operational DFC sections as of August, which is an average of 435 trains per day. This dedicated freight network has so far handled about 658 billion gross tonne kilometres and 360 billion net tonne kilometres.