Providing a boost to railway communication between Northeast India and neighbouring country Bangladesh, the much-awaited Akhaura-Agartala rail link is all set to be inaugurated on November 1 (Wednesday).
The ambitious rail project will be jointly flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, sources said.
In regard to this, the trial run of the Akhaura-Agartala rail link was conducted on Monday. It was for the first time the locomotive engine attached with four wagons entered into the Indian territory of Tripura.
The BSF personnel carried out the screening of the engine and attached wagons to it before the train entered the Indian side of Nischintpur near Agartala.
As per the standard operating procedure, the train would return to Bangladesh after necessary formalities.
This rail link, which is about 15 km away, will bring about a paradigm shift to the people of the Northeast. Along with cross-country trade and commerce, there will be a breakthrough in the movement of common people. The time taken by people of Tripuran to reach Kolkata or Delhi by rail or road will now be reduced by one-third. Earlier, it used to take 33 hours to reach Kolkata from Agartala. Now it will take only 8 hours to travel through Bangladesh.
The passengers footfall from Agartala to Kolkata is significantly very high due to the linguistic similarity between the two states. Both states also share age old cultural and business relations.
Notably, the Ministry of Development of North East Region funded the railway line from Agartala to Nischintapur; whereas the Ministry of External Affairs funded the rail line from Nischintapur to Gangasagar which is in Bangladesh.
