'Even files didn’t get dedicated corridor': PM Modi targets delay in freight project before 2014

Vadodara: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday used the completion of India’s Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) to attack the pace of infrastructure development under previous governments, saying files relating to the project had spent years moving between government offices without substantive progress.

Speaking in Vadodara after dedicating the final sections of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC), PM Modi traced the project’s history back to 2004 and said a special company was created in 2006 to execute it. But he claimed that little physical work had been completed by 2014.

"The files were travelling from one table to another," PM Modi said, adding with a jibe: “Unfortunately, even these files did not get a dedicated corridor. The files were stuck, hanging and wandering.”

The Prime Minister said that when the idea was first initiated in 2004, many of the young people attending his programme had not yet been born. He contrasted the years spent processing the project with the pace at which he said the work had advanced after 2014.

"In the seven to eight years before my government came to power, not even one kilometre of the freight corridor had been completed. If the country had been run at that pace, I do not know whether even three or four generations after you would have seen it completed."

He credited voters in Gujarat and Vadodara with sending him to Delhi in 2014 and said the lessons he had learnt in Gujarat shaped the approach taken to the project after he became Prime Minister.

“We started the work of giving it speed as soon as we reached there,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the government had now completed more than 2,800 km of the corridor and that the Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors are becoming a major foundation for the country’s trade and commerce.

The remarks came as PM Modi dedicated three final sections of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, covering 326 route kilometres and costing more than Rs 20,700 crore.

The sections — Sanand (North)-Makarpura, New Umbergaon-New Saphale, and New Saphale-JNPT — bring the entire DFC network into operation.

The DFC project was conceived to separate freight movement from passenger railway traffic, allowing goods trains to operate on dedicated routes.

Its completion is intended to increase freight capacity, reduce transit times and improve connectivity between industrial centres and ports.

PM Modi used the project’s long gestation period to frame a broader argument about changes in the government’s approach to infrastructure.

"The DFC demonstrated how India’s 'working culture' had changed over the past 12 years."

The Prime Minister’s remarks were part of a wider Vadodara programme involving development projects worth more than Rs 35,000 crore.

Apart from the freight corridor, he dedicated the Jobat-Tanda Road railway line and laid the foundation stones for three railway projects covering 329 km and costing more than Rs 9,700 crore.

These include the third and fourth lines between Vadodara and Ratlam, gauge conversion of the Miyagam Karjan-Choranda-Malsar section and doubling of the Vishwamitri-Dabhoi section.

Three highway projects costing around Rs 1,780 crore and state government projects worth around Rs 2,600 crore were also included in the programme.

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