By Sujit Chakraborty
Agartala, May 26 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday will flag off passenger train services to Mizoram and Manipur on the newly-laid broad gauge line, and Kamakhya-Vaishno Devi Katra weekly train, a railway official said on Thursday.
"The prime minister, accompanied by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, will use the remote control from Shillong to flag off the passenger train services to Mizoram and Manipur, and the Kamakhya-Vaishno Devi Katra weekly train," Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) chief public relations officer Pranav Jyoti Sharma told IANS.
"The Kamakhya-Vaishno Devi Katra weekly train was announced in the Railway Budget 2014-15," he said.
"The prime minister would also attend the 65th Plenary session of the North Eastern Council (NEC) in Shillong on Friday. He will flag off the train services in the afternoon, an NFR official said.
The metre gauge to broad gauge conversion projects of Silchar-Jiribam (52 km) rail tracks in Manipur and Silchar-Bhairabi (120 km) tracks in Mizoram were part of the Lumding-Silchar and Badarpur-Agartala gauge conversion projects.
The 437-km Lumding-Silchar and Badarpur-Agartala gauge conversion works were sanctioned in 1996 and completed earlier this year.
Another NFR official told IANS that the prime minister was scheduled to lay the foundation stone of the Agartala-Akhaura (Bangladesh) railway project and flag off regular passenger train service from Agartala to Sealdah, and Agartala to Silchar on the newly-laid broad gauge line. But these events would be held in June in Agartala.
The Rs.968-crore Agartala-Akhaura (5 km on the Indian side and 10 km on Bangladesh) railway project was finalised in January 2010 when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met the then prime minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
Subsequently, Modi discussed the railway project with Sheikh Hasina during his visit to Dhaka in June 2015.
(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)
