86 % land acquired for dedicated freight corridor project: Bansal

Mumbai: Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal today said that almost 86 per cent land has already been acquired for the ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor and expressed hope that the project will be completed in the next four years. “As much as 86 per cent of the land for the project (dedicated freight corridor) has already been acquired by the government. We are taking this mega project with utmost sincerity and we hope it should be completed in the next four years,” Bansal told reporters during a media briefing here. The project, being implemented by the railways through the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp of India Ltd (DFCCIL), aims to connect the important freight lanes between Delhi and Mumbai in the west and Ludhiana and Dankuni in the east. However, the project of such a magnitude cannot be accomplished with [caption id=“attachment_704192” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pawan Kumar Bansal. PTI[/caption] out the participation of the private sector, Bansal said. “These are the iconic projects, which we have in mind, which we have to achieve. But such projects can be implemented when we do it through private-public partnership mode due to the huge funding requirements,” he said. The work on the project, which required around Rs 95,000 crore, has made tangible progress and it is going on at a faster pace, he added. To a question on the much-delayed Churchgate-Virar elevated corridor, he said some agreements with the state government have been reached and a few issues relating to the project are being sorted out. PTI