In a recent cabinet decision, the government has cleared a Japanese soft loan of Rs. 26,124 crore for the upcoming Delhi to Mumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC). The corridor stretching about 1,488 km from Navi Mumbai to Delhi has been acclaimed as iconic infrastructure project of the country.

According to the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ambika Soni, the government approved the proposal for availing Japanese overseas development assistance (ODA) for implementing the western corridor of the dedicated freight corridor (DFC) project. She clarified that the first phase of the loans estimated at Rs. 17,700 crore for the Rewari-Vadodara section and an engineering services loan of approximately Rs. 130 crore will be received very shortly.

The loan, which comes at a very low interest rate of 0.2 per cent per annum with a long repayment period of 30 to 40 years, is meant for the western DFC stretching from Nehru Port Trust in Navi Mumbai to Dadri in UP on the outskirts of the capital passing through Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. As per the terms and condition of the loans, the prime contractors for the project should be a Japan firm and the sub contractors maybe from any other country. The western and eastern corridors are being augmented to meet the growing requirements of moving freight, she added.