The Indian Railways had entrusted an international consultancy organisation to carry out a survey to link Chennai Port with Mumbai and Kolkatta by means of a dedicated cargo corridor, a top railway ministry official said today.

The linkage would also inherit the optimum usage of Information Technology for management and supervision of transportation process. With funds to be made available by the Railway ministry, the project on completion would lead to cost reduction, saving of time and other advantages that would be necessary for distribution and marketing of these products at different corners of the country he added

The official, who did not wish to be quoted, said a 12-month time frame had been set for completion of the survey. After this, the Railways would venture on the project under PPP (Public Private Partnership) mode, by which Chennai Central and the Mumbai and Kolkatta Railway Terminals would have World Class corridor connectivity, he said.

The survey would also reveal details like carriage variants like transportation of cement, coal, food grains and petroleum products. With the relevant market data collated, it would identify logistics like storage of these materials and suggest various types of modular mobilization patterns, he said.

-PTI