580 crore rupees sanctioned for construction of railway track to connect Kolkata & Tripura via Bangladesh.

 To connect Kolkata with Tripura via Bangladesh through railway, the Union Government on 10^th February 2016 sanctioned about 580 crore rupees. The money was sanctioned for constructing the 15-kilometer railway track between Kolkata and Tripura. The project that is expected to be completed by 2017 will pass through Bangladesh. The Agartala-Akhaura rail-link between Indian Railway and Bangladesh Railway will reduce the current 1700 km road distance between Kolkata to Agartala via Siliguri to just 350-kilometer by railway.

This initiative is highly ranked on the ‘Act East’ policy of the government. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi the India's new government has made its relations with East Asian neighbours a foreign policy priority at a time when US's 'pivot to Asia'. The Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj had proposed a new outlook calling it Act East policy in the line of Look East policy which was introduced during the government of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao but seriously implemented during the successive administrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.