People of the landlocked state of Tripura have a new reason to rejoice: Agartala will have a Rajdhani Express to the national capital from Saturday. “It is indeed an occasion to rejoice. While our state did not have any railway link with the rest of the country till a metre gauge line was opened in 2008, it will now have a Rajdhani Express. It will benefit our people immensely who have for so long spent thousands of rupees to fly to Delhi for various purposes in the absence of a Broad Gauge link and a superfast train,” Manik Dey, transport minister in the Left Front government, said. But Dey said the Left Front government is not entirely happy. “How many people will be able to travel?. our government demands that it should be at least thrice a week,” he said. While the inaugural Rajdhani Express will leave Agartala at 1 pm on Saturday, it will depart regularly every Monday from Agartala at 6.30 pm, Pranav Jyoti Sharma, chief public relations officer of the Northeast Frontier Railway in Guwahati said. The Rajdhani Express will have 14 coaches, including one first class, two AC-2 Tier and eight AC-3 Tier coaches apart from two power-cum-luggage vans and one hot buffet car, Sharma said. It will travel 2,413 km between Agartala and Delhi’s Anand Vihar station in 36 hours, and have 15 stops, including Badarpur, Haflong, Guwahati, Kamakhya, New Jalpaiguri, Katihar, Barauni, Mughalsarai and Kanpur, Sharma said. Dilip Kumar Rana, who teaches development economics at Tripura University, said, “Students and patients will benefit the most. travelling to Delhi means catching a flight through Kolkata, which is both expensive and time-consuming. Tripura will now also get tourists,” Rana said.
