Dhaka, Delhi mull restoring pre-'65 rail link: Minister

AGARTALA: India and Bangladesh will restore the pre-1965 status of rail connections between the two neighbours, Bangladesh Railway Minister Mazibul Hoque said here. "India and Bangladesh will jointly restore the pre-1965 status of our rail connections.

"Currently India and Bangladesh have four operational rail links between West Bengal and western Bangladesh. More rail connections would be restored in the near future," Hoque told IANS here on Friday night.

"The Agartala-Akhaura new rail link will be operational within a year. Funded by India, the necessary works for laying the new 15-km rail track between Agartala railway station and Akhaura railway station has already started."

The Bangladesh Minister is here to attend the Rotary Clubs of India and Bangladesh's two-day third "Setubandhan" international programme.

The state-run Indian Railway Construction  Company (Ircon) will lay the five km track on the Indian side while the remaining 10 km would be laid by the Bangladesh railways.

The $145 million project was finalised in January 2010 when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met her then Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi.

Former Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Majibul Haque, jointly laid its foundation stone here on July 31 last year.

The Indian government would bear the entire cost of the project. The issue had also figured during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Sheikh Hasina during his visit to Dhaka in June 2015.