What is the project?

• In the 12.24-km Agartala-Akhaura railway line, 5.46 kilometres lie on the Indian side in Tripura, and 6.78 km in the Akhaura upa-zilla in Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh.
• The train will start from Agartala and move to Nischintapur, on the Indian-Bangladesh border, where the immigration checks will be held.
• The first station on the Bangladesh side will be Gangasagar.
• The trial run of a goods train was held on the route on Monday.

Why is the project important to Tripura?

• For land-locked Tripura, any connectivity project is of great practical significance.
• The project was crucial for connectivity in the NE region and would make Tripura the gateway for tourism.
• This day will go down in golden letters in the history of Indo-Bangla relationship.
• Tripura is going to be the gateway for tourism and transport between India and Bangladesh.
• Due to the Agartala-Akhaura railway project, the distance between Agartala and Kolkata will be effectively reduced from 1600 km to 500 km.
• However, connectivity with Bangladesh also holds emotional significance.
• Tripura shares an 856-km international border with Bangladesh, the second highest after West Bengal.
• The North Eastern state is surrounded by the country on all three sides except Assam on the fourth.
• During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war and the creation of Bangladesh, Tripura, a state which then had only 14 lakh people, sheltered nearly 15 lakh East Pakistani refugees.
• It ran at least 8 major muktijoddha (liberation warrior) training camps.
• With the new connectivity project, people on both sides can now hope for closer and smoother ties.

What other trains run between India and Bangladesh?

• The latest train service is part of an ongoing effort to boost connectivity between India and Bangladesh over the past few years.
• Three trains, the Bandhan Express, the Maitree Express and the Mitali Express, run between West Bengal and Bangladesh.
• The Bandhan Express reboots an old rail link between Kolkata and Khulna, the third-largest city of Bangladesh.
• Until the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, this route was served by the Barisal Express.
• The Bandhan uses the Petrapole-Benapole border crossing.
• The Maitree Express between Kolkata and Dhaka Cantonment started in April 2008.
• The Mitali Express, announced by PM Modi during his visit to Dhaka in March 2021, connects Siliguri in North Bengal with the Bangladesh capital.

Source: IE

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