Gateway Rail Freight, a subsidiary Gateway Distriparks (GDL), has started the construction of its 5th rail linked container terminal at Viramgam near Ahmedabad in Gujarat today after receiving all regulatory permissions from the state government and western railway.

The terminal at Viramgam is being built on 35 acres of land at a cost of about Rs 1 billion and will have two railway sidings for handling container trains.  It will be ready in a year and will operate as a rail hub and ICD at Viramgam.

Prem Kishan Gupta, CMD, Gateway-Rail said, ''This will be our offering for the international trade of Gujarat - particularly the new industrial belt of Ahmedabad - Sanand - Mehsana - Becharaji area. We plan to leverage the Gurgaon and Viramgam terminals as twin rail hubs to consolidate volumes of all the three ports and our four terminals.''

Shares of the company gained Rs 6.2, or 1.9%, to trade at Rs 331.75. The total volume of shares traded was 1,668 at the BSE (11.54 a.m., Wednesday).