DFCC To Offer Incentives To Contractors For Executing The Project In Time

Cracking the whip, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has put the construction of dedicated freight corridor (DFC), a flagship project of the government, on fast track and asked the concerned management to ensure speedy redressal of the problems being faced in executing the works.

Reviewing the progress, Goyal has asked the DFCC (Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India) to explore the possibility of offering some kind of incentives to contractors willing to take up and finish their work before/within the stipulated time frames.

Railway Minister has also sought creation of a dashboard for real time ‘Km by Km’ project monitoring and follow up action by the officials so that issues and solutions may be resolved on an urgent basis.

The review meeting discussed the issues confronting the DFC project, which has missed the completion targets many times in the past, in detail and drew an action plan to deal with it on a mission mode.

There are issues such as land acquisition, track linking, law and order situation, signalling and road over-bridge work which caused inordinate delay in commissioning the corridors.

Railway Ministry has already written letters to all the concerned States including Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh to resolve the pending issues of land, Rail Over Bridges (ROBs) and law & order.

States have asked to expedite the process of arbitration and enforce law if there were issues like obstruction of work in any patch of corridor, according to railways.

It has been decided that constant monitoring of the weekly progress of the project would be carried out so that the work is not affected in any way, railways maintained.

In order to fast track the project, the Minister suggested a slew of measures including holding regular weekly meetings with all contractors, vendors and suppliers.

Goyal directed the DFFC management and the contractors to take all possible steps to speed up the pace of works on all the sections of the Western DFC (1504 Route km) and Eastern DFC (1856 route km).

During the meeting, it was decided that strict monitoring of work of all contractors be done. Resolution of all issues, including coordination with the States to be done on a Mission mode.

Dedicated Freight Corridors is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects undertaken by the government. The overall cost is pegged at Rs 81,459 crores. DFCCIL has been set up as a special purpose vehicle to undertake planning, development, mobilization of financial resources, construction, maintenance and operation of Dedicated Freight Corridors.

DFC consists of the 1,839-km long Eastern DFC from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Kolkata, and the 1483-km long Western DFC, connecting the national capital, Delhi and its economic hub Mumbai.

As per the most data provided by DFCCIL, the corporation has completed 56 per cent of its contractual work on the Western DFC and 60 per cent work on the Eastern DFC. Also, 99 per cent of the required land has been acquired, DFCCIL said.