UPSC Prelims 2023 Q10: India's Connectivity Corridors — Explained

With reference to India's projects on connectivity, consider the following statements:

1. East-West Corridor under Golden Quadrilateral Project connects Dibrugarh and Surat.

2. Trilateral Highway connects Moreh in Manipur and Chiang Mai in Thailand via Myanmar.

3. Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor connects Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh with Kunming in China.

How many of the above statements are correct?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None

Answer: (d) None

Statement-wise explanation

  • 1: incorrect — The East-West Corridor runs from Silchar in Assam to Porbandar in Gujarat. It is about 3,300 km long and covers 7 states. It is not part of the Golden Quadrilateral. The GQ was Phase I of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) and joins Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. The North-South and East-West corridors were built under NHDP Phase II. So both the endpoints and the parent project in the statement are wrong.
  • 2: incorrect — The India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway is about 1,360 km long. It runs from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand, passing through Myanmar. Mae Sot is a border town in Tak province, across the river from Myawaddy in Myanmar. Chiang Mai is a different city in northern Thailand. The Moreh end is right, but the Thai end is wrong. India is building two sections inside Myanmar: the 120.74 km Kalewa-Yagyi road, and 69 bridges on the 149.70 km Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa stretch.
  • 3: incorrect — The proposed BCIM Economic Corridor runs about 2,800 km from Kolkata to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. It passes through Dhaka and Sylhet in Bangladesh, Silchar and Imphal in India, and Mandalay in Myanmar. Its Indian starting point is Kolkata, not Varanasi. India and China first formally backed the corridor in their May 2013 joint statement. Since then India has kept away from it, because China later counted it as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

How to eliminate

Statement 1 can be ruled out with basic knowledge. The Golden Quadrilateral only joins the four metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. A corridor that runs from one end of the country to the other is not 'under the GQ'. Also, the East-West Corridor's eastern end is Silchar, not Dibrugarh. Statement 3 can be ruled out with map sense. A corridor through Bangladesh to Myanmar and Yunnan would start from Kolkata, which is a port and the gateway to Bangladesh. It would not start from Varanasi, deep inland in Uttar Pradesh. With 1 and 3 gone, only 'Only one' or 'None' is left. Statement 2 decides between them, and you can only settle it by knowing the fact. The Trilateral Highway ends at Mae Sot, on Thailand's border with Myanmar, not at Chiang Mai. UPSC often makes a statement false by swapping one endpoint for a well-known nearby city. Learn each corridor as an exact pair of endpoints.

Know more

India's connectivity corridors: learn the exact endpoints

India's domestic highway programmes and its cross-border corridors are often confused because the names sound alike.

Domestic: National Highways Development Project (NHDP)

  • Phase I: Golden Quadrilateral (GQ). A loop of about 5,846 km joining Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.
  • Phase II: North-South and East-West corridors. About 7,300 km in total. North-South runs from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, with a spur from Kochi to Salem. East-West runs from Silchar to Porbandar. The two corridors cross at Jhansi.
  • In 2017, Bharatmala Pariyojana took over most of the NHDP's remaining work.

Cross-border corridors to the east (Act East)

Corridor Endpoints Route / note
India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway Moreh (Manipur) to Mae Sot (Thailand) About 1,360 km via Tamu, Kalewa and Mandalay. India funds the Kalewa-Yagyi road and the bridges on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa road.
BCIM Economic Corridor Kolkata to Kunming (Yunnan) About 2,800 km via Dhaka, Sylhet, Silchar, Imphal and Mandalay. Proposed in 2013. India has stayed away since China linked it to its Belt and Road Initiative.
Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project Kolkata to Sittwe port, then up the Kaladan river and by road to Mizoram A sea, river and road route that goes around the Siliguri Corridor

Common traps

  • Changing an endpoint to a nearby well-known city: Dibrugarh for Silchar, Chiang Mai for Mae Sot, Varanasi for Kolkata.
  • Putting a project under the wrong parent programme, such as the East-West Corridor 'under the GQ'.
  • Mixing up the Trilateral Highway, which is a road, with Kaladan, which combines sea, river and road.

In the news

The question is mostly static. The Trilateral Highway and other Act East links with Myanmar come up regularly in Parliament answers and in India-Myanmar talks. They stayed in the news after the 2021 coup in Myanmar delayed the work. The BCIM corridor is in the news because India refuses to join China's Belt and Road Initiative.

NCERT Concepts to Revise

Read more