AGARTALA, Feb 13 � The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) would soon undertake a final survey to lay the rail link between Akhaura in Bangladesh and Agartala.
Chief Administrative Officer (Construction), NFR, Mohan Lal on Monday said the survey for the 11.50 km railline between Akhaura and Agartala would be started just after allocation of fund in the general budget.
�Just after the outlay, the NFR will start the final survey for the long cherished Indo-Bangla rail link. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 2.52 crore for laying the entire railway track between Akhaura and Agartala�, Lal told reporters at the Civil Secretariat here.
The alignment of the proposed rail-line had already been finalised, he added. A high level delegation of NFR on Monday discussed the matter regarding Akhaura-Agartala rail link and extension of railway from Agartala to Sabroom in South Tripura district with Transport Minister Manik Dey and Finance and PWD Minister Badal Chowdury at the Civil Secretariat here today.
Lal said, rail will reach to Udaipur in Gomati district, about 50 km from here by June this year and upto Sabroom, about 110 km by March 2014. Officials of the Bangladesh Railways had visited Tripura in September 2010 and held discussions with their counterparts in Indian Railways at Agartala.
Earlier, a team of the Indian Railway Construction Company (IRCON) had visited Dhaka and held talks with government officials on alignment of the Agartala-Akhaura rail link.
Agartala was brought within the Indian Railways� networks in 2008. The NF Railway operates passenger trains between Agartala and Silchar in southern Assam.
The Centre has already started works on upgrading the Silchar-Agartala rail-line from meter gauge to broad gauge. Besides, surveys on extending the rail-link to Sabroom in southern Tripura have also been taken up. Sabroom, southernmost subdivision of Tripura is very close to India-Bangladesh border and just about 70 km from Chittagong Port.
