Having initiated negotiations with the World Bank, Railways officials said the response of the World Bank was “enthusiastic” and their officials were likely to appraise the project in 9-10 months before taking a final call on sanctioning a loan. “By March 2009, we’ll know whether a World Bank loan is coming. However, we are hopeful about securing the loan given the fact that the Eastern DFC is a financially viable project and the World Bank appears enthusiastic about associating itself with it,” said a senior railway official.

The Japanese Government, as earlier reported by The Indian Express, is learnt to have conveyed its decision to the Railways that it was interested in granting a loan to fund only the Western DFC between Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai and Tughlakabad/ Dadri near Delhi. This appears to have jeopardised the Railways’ plans, forcing them to explore other sources to secure funding.

Having originally sanctioned the Eastern DFC from Ludhiana to Sonenagar, the Railways has now decided to take the alignment upto Dankuni in West Bengal. The Eastern DFC is envisaged to further connect a deep-sea port in West Bengal. “The extension of this corridor upto Dankuni has taken its projected cost up several notches. With the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs having allowed Railways to seek multilateral funding, we are now contemplating a Rs 10,000 crore loan from the World Bank,” an official said.

The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited, the SPV formed to execute the project, has invited expression of interests for an engineer, procure and construct (EPC) contract worth Rs 3,000 crore for designing, engineering, procuring, constructing and commissioning double track electrified railway lines with signalling and telecommunication system and other related infrastructure for operation of freight trains on turnkey basis for the 300-km-long Bhaupur-Mandrak stretch on the Kanpur-Khurja Section of the Eastern DFC. “We are trying to begin work on this stretch by this November,” an official said.