The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) is a high-capacity, broad-gauge railway line in India designed exclusively for the transportation of freight, or goods and commodities. It is a major infrastructure project under the Ministry of Railways, implemented by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) established in October 2006. The project was announced in April 2005 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the EDFC and the Western DFC in February 2008. The primary problem it solves is the severe congestion on the existing Indian Railways' trunk routes, particularly the Golden Quadrilateral, which carries over 58% of the country's revenue-generating freight traffic on just 16% of the track.
The EDFC's main section spans 1,337 km from Sahnewal (near Ludhiana) in Punjab to Sonnagar in Bihar, passing through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand. The original planned route was 1,856 km to Dankuni (near Kolkata) in West Bengal, with the Sonnagar-Dankuni stretch initially planned for a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. The corridor is entirely electrified and features a double-track segment for most of its length, though the section from Ludhiana to Khurja is a single line. Its mechanism involves separating freight traffic from passenger traffic, which allows freight trains to run at higher speeds, up to 100 km/hr, and with a higher axle-load limit of 25 tons, significantly increasing capacity and reducing transit time. The EDFC is largely funded by the World Bank.
The EDFC connects to the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) via a connecting link between Khurja and Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. The EDFC was declared 100% operational in its 1,337 km length as of August 2025. The project is a key component of the National Logistics Policy and the National Rail Plan, aiming to increase the railway's modal share in freight transport and reduce India's logistics costs.