Freight corridor’s opening in Ludhiana paves way for 20-hr delivery to Maharashtra port
Sharing details, project director Surender Kumar said the city, “A train can ply at an average of 100 kmph on the dedicated corridor; the total distance to JNPT from the city is now around 1,900 km. We expect the goods to be at the port within 20 hours”
{Sahnewal-New Khurja}
City industrialists will now be able to avail a quickfire 20-hour transit of goods to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Maharashtra, with the Sahnewal-New Khurja section of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) being inaugurated on Monday. Currently, it takes seven to eight days to cover the distance.
Sharing details, project director Surender Kumar said the city, “A train can ply at an average of 100 kmph on the dedicated corridor. The total distance to JNPT from the city is now around 1,900 km. We expect the goods to be at the port within 20 hours.”
Punjab governor Banwarilal Purohit participated in the 401-km long Sahnewal to New Khurja section inauguration held at the new Khanna railway station. The section was dedicated to the public by Prime Minister Narendra Modi through video conferencing from Ahmedabad.
Speaking at the event, Purohit said it would accelerate the development by facilitating high-speed goods trains. He added that the section is part of a high-speed and high-capacity railway corridor meant exclusively for the transportation of freight or goods and commodities.
He emphasised that the project would reduce the logistic cost, increase the speed, and enhance the safety of freight movement, as well as generate employment opportunities and attract investments in various sectors.
Industry welcomes move
Welcoming the development, Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU) president Upkar Singh Ahuja said, “With the significantly slashed time our inventory carrying costs will come down besides making us able to deliver the product to the customer in time.”
Federation of Punjab Small Industries Associations (FOPSIA) president Badish Jindal, meanwhile, noted that the Eastern Freight Corridor was still not completed.
The project director said the 1,900-km corridor connecting the city with Dhankuni in West Bengal has been completed till Son Nagar in Bihar and work was still underway on the 600-km long section till the port.
Jindal said most of the raw material required by the steel industry comes from the east and for now it costs them around ₹4,000 per tonne for iron via trucks, which he hoped would go down to ₹2,000 when the corridor is completed.
The corridor starts at Ludhiana and ends at Dankuni in West Bengal, with the junction at Khurja near Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh connecting it to the Western Corridor.