One bridge for almost every 900 metres of rail track on an average. Incredible as it may sound, this is the kind of construction required to build the dedicated rail freight corridor (DFC) on the proposed route alignment. The construction could include some dismantling, extension or raising heights of bridges as well.

So, if Indian Railways has to finish constructing the DFC within the stipulated target of five years, it would either have to work at a record-breaking speed or change the proposed route alignment of the corridor.

“There are about 366 important bridges and 3041 minor bridges to be dealt with on 2762 km length of DFC – or one bridge every 0.9 km,” said official sources. These details were provided in a report submitted by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) team to the Railway Ministry.

In fact, based on the present route alignment as proposed by RITES, given the speed restriction norms, around 12 years would be required just to complete the minor bridges.

Hurdles

The DFCCIL team which has identified priority sections based on traffic saturation and minimum hindrance expected in construction on the Western and Eastern corridor each had these numbers to share with the Railway Ministry. In the 300-km-long Kanpur-Aligarh section on the Eastern corridor, 218 major and minor bridges need to be built or extended, apart from 105 road over bridges, 17 road under bridges, six rail flyovers and 22 station buildings.

The figures appear worse for the 364-km priority link between Ajmer and Palanpur on the Western corridor. It includes building or extending 648 major and minor bridges (80 major and 568 minor), 146 road over bridges, seven road under bridges, five rail flyovers and 15 station buildings.

Construction of new railway overbridges involve about 28 per cent of the total project cost, apart from facing resistance from the local people and authorities and difficult land acquisition issues, said sources.

“Acquiring land along existing rail track would be difficult since there is large scale development in privately owned area. Passengers would have to face inconveniences due to large scale dismantling, relocation and curtailing passenger-related facilities, apart from possible disruption to traffic,” they said.

Officials point out that the proposed freight corridor alignment is almost like a track doubling work — two new tracks run alongside the existing Indian Railway (IR) track. And when there are major stations, the route takes a diversion only to join the existing IR track at a later stage. This approach was adopted to avoid major land acquisition requirement as lands belonging to the Railways exist along the tracks. However, the time and cost overrun in building these bridges would offset the land acquisition required for the alternative route.