Cabinet clears SPV to execute freight corridor

The Empowered Committee, headed by the Cabinet secretary, would consist of the chairman and the commissioner of the Railway Board, the finance secretary and secretaries of Planning Commission, Ministries of Law and Environment and Forest and Departments of Road Transport of Highways and Shipping and the managing director of SPV. The Executive Committee would have the power to call the chief secretaries of the states to meetings if and when the need arises.

It has also been decided that SPV would perform similar functions in future phases of DFC, including those connecting the other legs of the Golden Quadrilateral and its diagonals. SPV would have the status of a railway administration under the Railways Act, 1989 and shall exercise powers and discharge the responsibility for the functions assigned to it under the concession agreement.

Following two meetings, the GoM were learnt to have agreed upon the Indian Railways floating a new public sector undertaking to execute the Rs 70,000-crore Dedicated Freight Corridor project linking Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai in the first phase and Mumbai-Chennai and Chennai-Howrah in the second.

Following extended deliberations over the ownership of the new company, it was decided that the PSU would be 100 per cent owned by the Railways with an authorised share capital of Rs 4,000 crore.