North-East Connecting places, boosting cross-border ties

 

 

 

 

 

SHILLONG On November 1, 2023, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina jointly virtually inaugurated Agartala-Akhaura railway line connecting the two countries, history was created. The railway line not only reduces the trading distance between the two countries, but also strengthens the bond of friendship. This also came as an important chapter in development of the North-Eastern region. It is a very crucial link between the two countries. The railway link with Bangladesh has been established after decades. It will reduce the distance between Tripura and Kolkata by around 1,000 kms. The new railway line will connect Agartala (Tripura) with Akhaura in Bangladesh, from where the line will join the existing Bangladesh railway line up to the western Petrapole-Benapole border crossing. From this border crossing, railway line is available up to Kolkata in Indian State of West Bengal. Thus, the Agartala-Akhaura rail link will also help in connecting Agartala with Kolkata through Bangladesh. Informing the visiting mediapersons from Maharashtra about this crucial rail link, K Moses Chalai, Secretary of the North-Eastern Council (NEC), said that the length of the Agartala-Akhaura cross-border rail link was 12 km with only 5.45 kms on Indian side and the remaining in Bangladesh.

 

The project has been funded by Department of North-Eastern Region (DoNER) and the NEC. The total approved cost of the project for 12 km was Rs 708.73 crore, of which NEC has already released Rs 678 crore. The committed liabilities are of Rs 30.73 crore. “Much of the area on the Indian side was marshy land, which posed a great challenge for us. We had to deposit 1.8 lakh truckloads of earth to prepare the ground for the rail link. Then, COVID-19 threw up a labour challenge. But, through the challenges, the project traversed its way to the historic day of November 1, 2023,” said K Moses Chalai. Agartala-Akhaura rail link project is one of the five Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR)-Central projects. The total approved cost of these projects is Rs 1,057.19 crore, of which Rs 1,019.23 crore has been released. Of course, Agartala-Akhaura rail link is the biggest of these five projects. The second biggest project is protection of the world-famous Majuli island from erosion due to flood in river Brahmaputra. The cost of this project is Rs 207 crore, of which entire fund has been released, and there has been 96 per cent of physical progress, which means that the project is nearing completion.

 

The other three NLCPR-Central projects include creation of infrastructure for establishment of one new college in Agriculture and Allied Science at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh and six multi-technology testing centres and vocation training centres in North-Eastern Hill region; establishment of Science and Technology Intervention in North-Eastern Region (STINER) common facility centre at CSIR-NEIST at Jorhat; and construction of meter gauge to broad gauge railway line from Panchgram station to inside Cachar Paper Mill. The Panchgram-Cachar Paper Mill project has been completed, and STINER common facility centre at Jorhat has registered 70 per cent progress. The agriculture college at Pasighat and multi-technology centres also have been completed. The NEC has been actively engaged in not only road construction but also other areas of development. Its regional plan has allocations for agriculture and allied sectors, power and renewable energy, industries, tourism, transport and communication, health, human resource development, science and technology, intellectual property rights, sustainable livelihood etc. Now, it is working on a four-year pool of schemes that are fully Centrally funded. Is it part of a long-term vision for development of the North-Eastern region? (To be continued)