In a bid to help the Indian Railways meet the increasing demand for faster and efficient movement of the freight, the Ministry of Railways has sought Union Cabinet’s approval to build three new dedicated freight corridor (DFC) networks at a total investment of about Rs 3 lakh crore, reports LiveMint.

The three new corridors that the railways plans to build are the 2,328 km-long East-West Corridor between Kolkata and Mumbai, the 2,327 km-long North-South Corridor between Delhi and Chennai and the 1,114 km-long East Coast Corridor between Kharagpur and Vijaywada.

The preliminary engineering and traffic system study of these three new DFCs, covering 5,769 km, has already been completed.

According to the report, the DFC project of the Indian Railways involves constructing five freight corridors across the country. Through its arm Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), the railways is already building the first two freight corridors - the 1,504 km-long Western Freight Corridor from Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port and the 1,856 km-long Eastern Freight Corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni - at a cost of Rs 81,000 crore.

The railways is reportedly planning to complete over 60-70 per cent of the work in the two corridors by this financial year and fully operationalise them by 2021.

The freight corridors are important for the government’s infrastructure projects that aims to decongest railway network, ensure faster movement of goods, increase the national carrier’s freight capacity network and reduce overall logistics cost for companies.