New Delhi: Days after the PMO raised concerns over delay in its dedicated freight corridors, the Railways has identified sluggish work by contractors, the law and order situation at some places and slow progress in land acquisition by states among the key bottlenecks for this ambitious project.
The reasons have been listed in an internal assessment conducted by the Railways on the issues being faced by the two under-construction DFCs -- the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (from Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai) and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal).
The assessment finds that big ticket contractors such as Alstom, Hitachi, GMR Infra, TPL-Aldesa (a joint venture of TATA Projects India and ALDESA of Spain), Texmaco Rail and Engineering, among others, have either failed to mobilise labour or are facing cash crunch or have been generally laggard in their work.
While the original deadline for completion of these DFCs was December 2021, the Railways recently said it has been pushed back by six months to June 2022 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
For the delay in the EDFC, the Railways assessment found that the GMR Infra has been able to complete only 63 percent of the work in the past five years. The company was awarded the civil work contract for the Kanpur-DDU section in 2015 at a cost of Rs 5,087 crore.
The assessment has also found Alstom to be extremely slow in the electrical, signalling and telecom works in the Khurja-Kanpur section. The work was awarded to them in 2015 for Rs 1,497 crore.
It also found that TPL-Aldesa has effected inadequate mobilisation in the Khurja-Pilkhani section.
In the assessment of the WDFC project, the report found that Hitachi and Texmaco have delayed the signalling and telecom works, while the work progress has also been hindered as the Gujarat government cited slow acquisition of land for approaches .
The project is monitored on a weekly basis now. Another meeting is scheduled to be chaired by MR (Minister of Railways) next Monday with all stakeholders. The Railways would listen to all. If contractors are unhappy we can't be happy, idea is to take all with you, Railways spokesperson DJ Narain said.
However, the Railways will not tolerate any slippages in timelines of the contracted works. Action would be taken against any entity causing delay in the project of such importance. This strict monitoring is for all the working parties involved including entities in the Railways. Rules of monitoring is applicable for all, he
said.
He said a DFC review meeting with vendors, suppliers and contractors is scheduled for August 31 while one with state government officials of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra for September 1.
In response to queries from PTI, Alstom said it had finished 90 per cent of its work on the EDFC project and is on track to complete the rest within the given time.