Agartala-Akhaura railway project to be commissioned next year: MoS Finance Pankaj Chaudhury

The Agartala-Akhaura railway link is 15 km long and would connect Akhaura in Bangladesh with an international immigration station at Nischintapur along the India-Bangladesh international border.

Raosaheb Patil Danve. (Photo: Facebook)

A couple of months after Minister of State for Railways Raosaheb Patil Danve said work on Agartala-Akhaura international rail connectivity with Bangladesh would be completed within December this year, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhury visited the project site Sunday and said he hoped the project would be commissioned in about a year’s time.

The project, which was earlier scheduled to be completed by December 2020, was delayed owing to land acquisition issues and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Agartala-Akhaura railway link is 15 km long and would connect Akhaura in Bangladesh with an international immigration station at Nischintapur along the India-Bangladesh international border.

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Speaking to reporters after a visit to Nischintapur, Chaudhury said he came to survey the progress of work.

“I came to take stock of the progress of work… The progress of work is very good. At this rate, it will be completed very soon and connectivity with Bangladesh will be smoother,” the Union minister told reporters.

The minister, however, added that it will take more than a year for the project to be commisdioned.

Notably, his comments came three months after Bangladesh Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujon expressed dissatisfaction at the progress of work and warned the construction agency to complete pending works by December 2022 or face consequences.

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Danve, who visited the project site on April 22 this year, had earlier said the work was progressing as per schedule on both the Agartala-Akhaura project and another India-Bangladesh international railway project at Sabroom in South Tripura.

Danve had said work on station and lines was almost complete for the Akhaura project and added that the Union government was keeping December 2022 as the target date for completion.

The ambitious India-Bangladesh railway connectivity project is expected to reduce travelling time between Agartala and Kolkata via Dhaka to 10 hours from 31 hours, since the route would effectively reduce the distance from 1,600 km to 550 km.