Indian railway minister says rail project with Bangladesh top priority, PMO overseeing it

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in India is directly supervising the new India-Bangladesh railway project along Tripura, a Union minister has said.

Tripura Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 12 Jan 2016, 06:49 PM
Updated : 12 Jan 2016, 08:54 PM

“The India-Bangladesh railway project is in most priority list and the PMO is directly overseeing the much expected project,” Indian Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha told reporters at Nishintipur village along India-Bangladesh border along western Tripura on Tuesday.
 
He inspected the spot at which the railway line enters Bangladesh from Tripura.
 
“Already land acquisition for laying the tracks of Agartala-Akhaurha railway project has been completed. The fund will most likely be sanctioned in the coming fiscal.”
 
Accompanied by Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) General Manager HK Jaggi and other senior officials of railway ministry and IRCON (Indian Railway Construction Company), Sinha arrived here on a two-day visit to the north-eastern state. 
 
He will supervise the ongoing railway projects in Tripura and will inaugurate the trial broad-gauge passenger train.
 
The railway minister will also met Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and discuss progress of the work on ongoing railway projects.
 
“Bangladesh is also excited about the execution of this project as we are but it will be more beneficial for us,” the minister said.
 
The Agartala-Akhaurha railway project was finalised in January 2010 when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met her then Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, during her visit to New Delhi.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the Rs 575-crore railway project with Hasina during his trip to Dhaka in June last year.

The Agartala-Akhaurha railway project is also under consideration of the Trans-Asia Railway network connecting the South Asian nations with Europe through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, said an official of NFR, who also accompanied the minister.

"For the Trans-Asia Railway network also, this is under consideration as an alignment," said Jaggi, the NFR General Manager.

The DoNER ministry had previously committed itself to provide funds for laying tracks on the Indian side. But recently, it expressed its inability to finance the scheme.

The NITI Aayog had decided in a meeting in New Delhi on Jun 18 last year to put in place the vital railway project between India and Bangladesh by December 2017.

The 1,650-km distance between Agartala and Kolkata would be reduced to only 550 km once the new rail tracks are linked through Bangladesh.

The Indian government had announced that it will bear the entire cost of the 15-km railway project. Of the 15 km, five kilometres fall in Indian territory and the rest in Bangladesh.

The project's cost was earlier estimated at Rs 271 crore. In addition, Rs 302 crore was needed to acquire around 97.6 acres of land in Tripura for laying the tracks.

But the latest alignment of the project in which the Indian side will be overhead has reduced the required land acquisition to 72 acres; so, the requirement of funds to acquire land has come down to Rs 98 crore from Rs 302 crore.

The Indian state-owned IRCON is expected to lay the tracks on both sides of the border.

Later, the team also visited the Agartala ICP and saw the flag-retreading programme at the zero point between India and Bangladesh, which was organized by the border guards of both nations.

The minister also distributed sweets among the border guards.