Thursday, July 6 2006 18:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Union Cabinet today (July 6, 2006) decided to refer to a Group of Ministers the proposal for a dedicated freight corridor between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata.

"The matter has been referred to a Group of Ministers which will be constituted soon", Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

When completed, the corridor would provide separate freight line for faster movement of goods at competitive prices on the route. Railway has planned another corridor between Delhi-Chennai and Kolkata-Chennai in the next phase.

The proposal for the dedicated corridor linking the fourports between Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Chennai and Kolkata-Chennai with an estimated of Rs 66,000 crore was mooted by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad to decongest the already overloaded freight traffic to provide faster goods train through a separate line.

The first phase of the corridor between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata would be launched by the Railways initially asthey are the overloaded routes.

The next phase between Delhi-Chennai and Chennai-Kolkata as also their quadrilateral would be launched later.

Railway is also considering several options to finance the multi-crore projects, including market sources (World Bank and other International agencies).

It is also working on a 'debt-equity Ratio of 2::1' and for that it needed Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000 crore and accordingly was preparing a plan.

RITES already has given ferasibility, location survey and detailed report on the costing of the project. The Final location survey would be available by December, 2007.