Announcing this while presenting the Rail Budget in Lok Sabha, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said in the first phase of the Eastern Corridor project, a separate freight corridor would be built from Ludhiana to Sonnagar via Ambala, Saharanpur, Khurja and Allahabad.
The primary feeder routes from Sonnagar to Durgapur via Gomoh, Sonnagar to Tatanagar via Garhwa Road and Barkakana to Bokaro via Chandrapura will be upgraded in order to carry heavier trains of coal and steel traffic, he said, adding it will also be extended up to ports in West Bengal as per traffic needs.
The Western Corridor will start from Jawaharlal Nehru Port and routed via Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Jaipur and Rewari to Tughlakabad and Dadri, Prasad said.
Both the corridors would be joined by a link between Dadri and Khurja, he said adding the feeder routes of the Western Corridor connecting ports of Gujarat would be upgraded. These projects would be inaugurated soon by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.