New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS): Focusing on the development of railway freight corridors, union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday announced the development of the Delhi-Chennai, Kharagpur-Mumbai and Kharagpur-Vijayawada freight corridors on a priority basis.

Presenting the railway budget for 2016-17, Prabhu said the railways has proposed to develop freight corridors between Delhi-Chennai (north-south), Kharagpur-Mumbai (east-west) and Kharagpur-Vjayawada on the east coast.

According to him, the three projects will be on high priority to ensure structuring, award and implementation in a time-bound manner.

The projects will be funded through innovative models including public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

He said all the contracts for the civil engineering would be awarded before the close of the financial year.

Prabhu said since he assumed office contracts worth Rs.24,000 crore have been awarded against contracts worth Rs.13,000 crore in the last six years.

He said as the railways are focused on increasing freight revenue and expand the freight business, it is essential to build more dedicated freight corridors.