AGARTALA, Feb 25 (TIWN) : The Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in parliament has said that better connectivity to the North Eastern States is of utmost priority for the Indian Railways. Presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 in Parliament today he said, Indian Railways have opened the long-awaited Broad Gauge Lumding-Silchar section in Assam, thus connecting Barak Valley with rest of the country. The railway budget 2016 announced on Thursday, announced for better connectivity with its special focus on North Eastern zone and also Jammu and Kashmir. “To connect the whole country with railway is this budget’s aim”, said Prabhu while addressing the Budget session in Parliament. However, the central govt. has already bringing development in North east zone and now Mizoram and Manipur to be brought under broad gauge soon. “Govt. will focus on the connectivity of all the undeveloped states, amongst which NE zone is giving the highest priority”, said Prabhu.It also brought Agartala, the capital of Tripura on to the Broad Gauge network. He said, the States of Mizoram and Manipur are also set to come on the Broad Gauge map of the country soon with commissioning of the Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam Gauge Conversion projects.The Minister said, in J&K, despite difficult terrain and uncertain geology, work on Katra-Banihal section of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link Project is progressing satisfactorily and 35 Kilometers of tunneling, out of total of 95 Kilometers has been completed successfully.

He said, the decongestion work on the Jalandhar- Jammu line, an important link to the valley, is going on in full swing.

Doubling of two bridges will be commissioned by March 2016, while the other two bridges will be completed by 2016-17, Suresh Prabhu added.