Why in News?

• The World Bank has offered to give financial assistance to the last remaining portion of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) between Sonnagar (Bihar) and Dankuni (West Bengal),
• India has originally slated to construct this in the private public-private partnership (PPP) mode. As of now, the entire EDFC is being built with loan from World Bank, except for the last portion between Bihar and West Bengal.

About Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC):

• The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) with a route length of 1856 km runs from Dankuni in West Bengal to Ludhiana (Punjab).
• It covers Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
• The railway is one of the multiple freight corridors.

Two components from EDFC:

• First component is to provide additional rail transport capacity, improved service quality and higher freight throughput.
• The second component is institutional development to assist DFCCIL and Ministry of Railways (MOR) to develop their capabilities to best utilize heavy haul freight systems.

About Western Dedicated Freight Corridor:

• The 1,504-km western freight corridor begins at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and stretches till the country’s largest container port — Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, near Mumbai — passing through Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.]

About Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd. (DFCCIL):

• DFCCIL under the Ministry of Railways is a special purpose vehicle tasked with planning and completion of 3,306 kms of Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), consisting of western freight corridor and eastern freight corridor (1,856 kms).
• The construction of DFCs project would enable the decongestion of existing over-saturated paths which, thereby, will effectively improve punctuality of Passenger Trains.