| New Delhi, March 4: A 66km stretch of the eastern freight corridor, the showcase project of Indian Railways to attract global investors, is likely to open in early 2014. Civil work for the project, between Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh and Sonnagar in Bihar, is likely to be completed by the end of next year, sources said. The Rs 24,000-crore eastern corridor is expected to cover 1,839km, from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Calcutta, linking industrial towns and mines with the eastern ports. The project is being monitored by the Prime Minister's Office. Nearly two-third of this corridor will be built with World Bank fund. The Sonnagar-Dankuni section will be executed on a public-private partnership mode. Indian Railways is also investing a substantial amount. The World Bank will provide $2.7 billion in three tranches: $700 million for Ludhiana-Khurja (397 km), $975 million for Khurja-Kanpur (343km) and $1.05 billion for Kanpur-Mughalsarai (390km). The rail board has set 2015 as the deadline for the completion of the corridor, which will carry iron, coal, cement and other minerals from Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal to other parts of the country The Japanese government is funding the Rs 26,000-crore western freight corridor, linking Delhi with Mumbai. Work has already started on the project, which is expected to be a money spinner linking large industrial estates with ports in Gujarat and Maharashtra. According to a study by RITES, the projected traffic on the two dedicated freight corridors in 2016-17 is 75.60 million tonnes, which is likely to increase 20 per cent to 91.33 million tonnes by 2021-22. More ventures Besides the freight corridors, the railways are looking to join hands with private players in laying commercial lines to move coal, iron ore and other raw materials for industrial customers. "We have to meet the needs of the customers…we have signed a deal with SAIL, Coal India, private companies and Chhattisgarh to set up three railway corridors to evacuate coal from greenfield mines in that state," railway minister Dinesh Trivedi told The Telegraph "We found out on a visit to that state that new mines had sprung up in north Chhattisgarh but these were not linked to the rest of the country. Which is where we came in and signed a deal," he said. The three corridors in Chhattisgarh — east corridor linking Bhupdevpur to the Korba industrial hub, north section linking Korba with Surajpur and an east-west link between Gevra and Pendra — will be funded through special purpose vehicles with investment from state-run and private firms as well as the state government. Freight constitutes a major portion of the railways' revenues. Between April 2011 and January 2012, the railways earned Rs 55,381 crore as freight revenue, a 9.7 per cent increase over the year-ago period. It earned Rs 69,000 crore in the last fiscal. The railways need higher earnings from freight to meet its modernisation and safety plans. It aims to ramp up freight revenue by following a two-pronged strategy of increasing the turnover ratio on tracks and hiking charges. Improved turnover ratio means more freight trains will move along a single stretch during a specified period. A marginal increase in rates is a possibility for goods that can afford a hike such as coal. Trivedi's aides say a hike in freight charges is on the cards as the gross budgetary support for the railways is not expected to be much higher than last year's Rs 20,000 crore. | 
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