JOIN USThe ambitious India-Bangladesh railway network from the North-East has been stalled by paucity of funds, said senior Indian Railway officials during an inspection in Tripura on Monday,
It is being considered a setback to the Centre’s Act East initiative.
Five years ago, the Centre had decided to link Tripura’s capital Agartala to Akhurah in Bangladesh.
“It is not very certain when we can begin work in Agartala. As on date, we have no fund allocated for this project,” said Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) general manager R K Gupta in Agartala.
In 2010, when Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had visited New Delhi, the Centre had decided to invest Rs 575 crore in the project.
Till 2014, there was no initiative on the decision, but during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka last June, the matter was discussed between two countries and Modi had then declared that the rail link was a top priority for the Act East policy.
New Delhi had then announced that Indian Railways would be allocated funds to bear the cost of laying 15 km of track to link Agartala to Akhurah.
Meanwhile, the Railways has put in place a mega-block between Badarpur in Southern Assam to Agartala for conversion from meter gauge to broad gauge by March 2016.