Agartala to get Broad-Gauge rail link by December, 2013

Agartala, February 13: Agartala will get Broad-Gauge rail connectivity within December, 2013, said Arvind Shevare, Chief Administrative Officer of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) here today. Speaking to reporters after attending a meeting with the state government at the Civil Secretariat here this morning, the official stated, "Status of work is very positive. We expect the project to get completed by December, 2013. Trains would be plying in and out by the said timeframe". Revenue Minister Badal Choudhury, Transport Minister Manik Dey, Transport Secretary Kishore Ambuly, Chief Engineer of NFR Mohanlal, Senior DSC Vivek Sagar, Satish Kothari and Deputy Chief Engineer of NFR Rajveer Singh attended the meeting among the officials.

Agartala-Akhaura rail route may be included in next rail budget

Land issue at Bishalgarh almost solved

Agartala-Sabroom rail route scheduled to be completed in Mar, 2014

Rs. 252 crores proposal placed for Agartala-Akhaura route

Out of a total of 377 Km of rail route from Lumding to Agartala, status for gauge conversion work lies ready in a stretch of 363 Km while the initial stage from Lumding in a stretch of 84 Km is posing a serious problem, said Shevare. Mega-block of all rail movement for facilitating total replacement of meter-gauge tracks in around 100 locations where Broad-Gauge line has crossed the existing lines is scheduled to be started in September, 2013.

However, the fate of internal rail connectivity in Tripura hasn't visibly come up so fortunate as the BG conversion job. Agartala-Udaipur rail connectivity which was supposed to be completed by the deadline of March, 2012 has been delayed till June. "The land issue at Bishalgarh is still posing problems though there has been considerable progress of work in land acquisition. The state government has assured us to hand over the conflict plots shortly and if everything goes right, we expect the project to be complete by June, 2012", said Shevare adding that the Agartala-Sabroom route is scheduled to be completed by March, 2014 as per previous schedule. Land excavation and track laying work has 

already started in several patches of the 112 Km long route, said he. As far as operational problems are concerned, the official assured that NFR will make special arrangements to ensure passenger satisfaction in this bid.

Referring to the Agartala-Akhaura rail link, Shevare said, "A proposal of Rs. 252 crores has been placed with the Railway Board which is under active consideration. It is very likely that the project will be included in the coming Railway Budget". The project is most likely to be carried out by Indian Railways Construction Company (IRCON). Initial survey works were completed long back while a detailed locational survey is scheduled to be conducted soon. Land acquisition is scheduled to be started soon after and the entire project would take two working seasons for commissioning.