NEW DELHI: Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd will float Request for Proposals for developing 20 Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals in 2024, said Shobhit Bhatnagar, Director (Operations & Business Development), Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation Ltd at the sidelines of ET Infra Rail Show.
DFCCIL has been rolling out tenders for the development of Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals both on private land as well as alongside both western and eastern dedicated freight corridors.
“So there are two schedules. Schedule 1 is for the private terminals (on private land) and Schedule 2 for the terminals on the DFC land or the railway land. So we have made significant progress as far as the terminals under Schedule 2 are concerned,” said Bhatnagar.
“So this year we are targeting to come out with RFPs for almost about 20 such GCTs (Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals). So we hope there is good enough bidding on those and some more terminals come up,” he added.
Among the operators of such terminals are Central Warehousing Corporation, Pristine Logistics, Emirates Logistics.
According to Bhatnagar, one terminal under the policy has been set up at Rewari, which is already functional and was commissioned last year in April. Another such terminal has also started functioning located at New Bhaupur on the eastern DFC and further two more are under construction.
As per the ‘Gati Shakti Multimodal Cargo Terminal Policy’ launched in December 2021, the government is aiming to set up 100 such terminals by the end of 2024-25.
According to the Ministry of Railways, the policy aims to proliferate development of new cargo terminals as well as improve the existing ones, and accelerate the growth of railways’ cargo traffic.
The development of the terminals are open to logistics services providers, real estate developers, third party logistics players, warehousing investors, container train operators, manufacturers and salient features include simplified application and approval process, enabling private as well state-owned operators to set up common user facilities or terminals for handling rail cargo, relaxation in land license fee, among others.
On the progress of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, Bhatnagar shared that only the 104-km stretch between New Saphale to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Maharashtra remains to be completed. Notwithstanding, the remaining stretch, the rest of WDFC is active and even the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor has been operationalised, he added.
