Delay In Western Freight Corridor Project Due To Green Norms; DFCC Seeks Maharashtra Government's Intervention

The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCC) is expecting a shift in the fortunes of the Western dedicated freight corridor with the change of government in Maharashtra.

According to a Business Standard report, DFCC has approached the Shinde-Fadnavis government to overturn an earlier state government order banning earthwork for the project.

The issue dates back to February this year when the Pune bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) passed an order against stone-quarrying and stone-crushing work for infrastructure projects.

Under the NGT order, the state government had mandated environmental clearances before issuing mine and minerals earthwork permits.

The Railways, since then, has opposed the state government's diktat, arguing that the scope of the NGT order did not apply to the earthworks being undertaken by DFCC.

Long deliberations over the matter between the Ministry and the state government had been ineffective, thereby stalling the project's progress.

Though the Uddhav Thackeray-led government had banned the earthwork under the pretext of NGT order, a part of the reason was political, as the DFC was not carrying out stone-crushing or stone-quarry works.

However, two months into the new dispensation, the older order remains in place.

The relatively slow movement in overturning the previous order is in contrast to the state's intervention in granting faster clearances to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) Project, better known as Bullet Train.

Legal Challenge

The NGT had, on 31 May 2016, held that the Indian Railways and metro rail projects needed environmental clearance after conducting a proper Environment Impact Assessment (EIA).

The tribunal had passed the order when the matter of construction of the Railways' dedicated freight corridor came up before it.

The Supreme Court (SC) in September 2016 stayed the NGT order. It was hearing pleas filed by DFCCIL and Metro Rail against the order passed by the green tribunal.

The apex court, in its order, had allowed linear projects like freight corridor works to be carried out without environmental clearances to avoid delays.

In March 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) waived off the requirement of prior environmental clearance for 'extraction or sourcing or borrowing of ordinary earth for the linear projects such as roads, pipelines etc.' that was otherwise a mandatory pre-requisite and conditional precedent under the EIA, 2006.

The said notification was challenged in a PIL in the SC in July 2020, which rejected it.

"You are saying that ordinary earth has been included as minor mineral by the state government. Development will come to standstill if mining ordinary earth also needs clearance. We don't agree with you," the bench led by Chief Justice SA Bobde said while rejecting the plea.

Meanwhile, the NHAI, in May 2022, challenged the state government's directive, but was unsuccessful. The NGT bench declined the plea by the NHAI and asked the Ministry to revisit 2020 exemption order.

Flagship Project

Presently, the Ministry of Railways has taken up construction of two DFCs viz. Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Ludhiana to Sonnagar (1,337 km) and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal (JNPT) to Dadri (1,506 km).

The WDFC connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to JNPT in Mumbai passes through five states - UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

It was expected to be completed by March 2024. However, the deadline is in jeopardy due to procedural delays and the state government directive.

At present, half of the eastern and western DFCs are operational, with more stretches being added periodically.

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