The Indian government will soon start work on a new rail link to Bangladesh that would ease surface transport in the mountainous northeastern states, a railway official said on Tuesday.

India will build a 15-km railway track linking Tripura capital Agartala with Bangladesh’s southeastern city of Akhaurah, which is also an important railway junction connected to Chittagong port, resource-rich Sylhet and Dhaka. An agreement to this effect was signed between between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina during her visit to India in January 2010.