Modi inaugurates Garjee-Belonia railway track section during Tripura visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday dedicated a 23.32-km railway track in southern Tripura to the nation and inaugurated the new complex of Tripura Institute of Technology (TIT) at Narsingarh, near here. The 23.32-km Garjee-Belonia section, built at a cost of Rs 400 crore, is part of the Rs 3,407-crore Agartala-Sabroom (115 km) national railway project aiming to link southern Tripura's last border town (Sabroom), which is just 72 km away from the port of Chittagong.

The Prime Minister, who arrived here from Guwahati, was accompanied by Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. Using a remote control system, Modi dedicated the new railway line to the nation and inaugurated the new complex of TIT from the Swami Vivekananda Stadium here.

The new TIT complex was built at a cost of Rs 103 crore, which was shared by the state and the Central government. The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has been laying new railway tracks in three places, including the Agartala-Sabroom route along India-Bangladesh border in Tripura, and that would facilitate the carriage of goods and passengers from the northeastern states on the Bangladeshi railway network.

The Indian and Bangladeshi railways are laying 15 km of tracks at a cost of Rs 963 crore between Agartala and Akhaura in Bangladesh to link the networks of the two neighbouring countries. NFR's Chief Public Relations Officer Pranav Jyoti Sharma said that the broad gauge railway line from Agartala to Sabroom was sanctioned in the Rail Budget of 2007-08 as a National Project.

The 115-km long Agartala-Sabroom railway line passes through four of the eight districts of Tripura - West Tripura, Sepahijala, Gomati and South Tripura. "There is no good transport link in Tripura. Therefore, the train service would be a boon to the people of Tripura," Sharma added.

(With inputs from agencies.)