AGARTALA, July 8 (TIWN): ‘As soon as the fund will be allocated, state will work on Feni River bridge’, Tripura PWD Minister Badal Choudhury told TIWN. Asking the status of River Feni project, the PWD Minister Badal Choudhury said, “The total fund has not been sanctioned but hopefully it will be sanctioned soon”. “As soon as the fund is allocation the state Govt. will start to work on it”, said PWD Minister Badal Choudhury. Moreover there are 22 deals done by Modi and Hasina including Bus service, internet, power service, rail, water way etc—among all these the Feni river project comes. He added, “We sent sub-divisional officers to Delhi in this regard and they have taken the Detailed Project Report along with other designs, plans, and officials papers to the Delhi Ministry level”. “Once their fresh DPR is accepted and fund is released, Tripura Govt. will not delay to start work”, said Choudhury. “As it’s two countries issue, it is taking time”, he added.

It’s worthy to mention here that in both the project of Indo-Bangla gateway (Railway and River Feni Project) is delaying as it’s two countries issue.

Once the transport via the four lane Feni river Bridge and 15 km rail service begins, people here will benefited by Indo-Bangla trade. 150-metre Feni river bridge project which was planned to begin since the year 2015, to connect Tripura directly with Chittagong Port with the estimated cost of Rs. 91 crores, is delaying since 2012, when it was proposed.

The decision to construct the bridge with four-lane facilities was taken in a high level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS), in 2012 August 21.

 Earlier talking to Dipak Das PWD Chief Engineer, he said, “We sent the DPR long back to Transport Ministry in central and presently we are preparing to begin the land-acquisition for it”. Same was repeated by Badal Choudhury.

Feni river project, directly to connect state to neighboring Bangaldesh and of course then Tripura will be considered as the Gateway towards Southeast Asia, and with Export-Import business it will boost the economy of Tripura.

Proposed Bridge over river Feni between Tripura and Chittagong is delaying, plan was to make South Tripura to become trading hub of two countries one day. But till day no such construction work has taken up.

The proposed bridge will connect Southern Tripura's border town Sabroom, 135 km south of Agartala, with the Bangladeshi border town Ramgarh, 300 km Northest of Dhaka.