SAIL keen to invest Rs8,000 crore in Eastern Freight Corridor plan

The Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has evinced interest in investing as much as  `8,000 crore in the 500 km Sonnagar-Dankuni section of the eastern dedicated freight corridor project of the Indian Railways.

Confirming the receipt of representation by SAIL, a
senior railway ministry official said a committee would look into the modalities of the SAIL funding for the project.

“SAIL has evinced interest for the section which we planned to take up on public private partnership (PPP) basis. The balance is funded through multilateral agencies. We have decided to form a committee having representatives from the ministry as well as SAIL to chalk out the right funding as well as revenue sharing pattern,” said the official.

The eastern dedicated freight corridor is an 1,839km stretch between Ludhiana in Punjab and Dankuni in West Bengal.

For the 1,131km stretch between Ludhiana and Khurja, the railway ministry is in advanced stage of negotiations with the World Bank.

For the Sonnagar-Dankuni, in which SAIL has evinced interest, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd has completed the location survey.

The total investment in the corridor will be to the tune of Rs23,000 crore. The project is targeted for completion in 2016-17.

Even though the contours of the SAIL pact are yet to be drawn, the railways infrastructure initiative for industry (R3i) policy is likely to come in handy for the purpose.

The policy envisages four revenue sharing models for network expansion on a PPP basis, with different revenue sharing channels based on freight rebates to the private partners. The policy also envisages formation of 26:74 joint venture with the railways to implement the expansion plan.

On the 1,500km Western freight corridor between Tughlakabad in New Delhi to Jawahar Lal Nehru port in Mumbai, contract for design and construction of 54 major and important bridges in Vaitarana-Bharuch section has been awarded by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation in February and work is in progress.

This work is being executed from Railway’s resources. A major portion of this stretch is being funded by the Japan International Co-operation Agency.