DHAKA: The Bangladesh and Indian governments will start working early next year on a new rail link to ease surface transport, officials said in Agartala of India.

India will build a 15-km railway tracks linking Tripura’s capital Agartala with Bangladesh's southeastern city of Akhaura, an important railway junction connected to Chittagong port, resource-rich Sylhet and Dhaka, reports the Times of India on Wednesday.

It added that an Indian delegation and a Bangladeshi team attended the third meeting of the Agartala-Akhaura railway link project steering committee in Agartala on Tuesday. 

They are scheduled to go for a field inspection on the Indian side Wednesday.

“The work for new Agartala-Akhaura railway link will start early next year. The DPR (detailed project report) will be finalized within a month or so on,” India's external affairs ministry's joint secretary Alok K Sinha told reporters after the meeting.

Sinha, who led the Indian delegation, said: "... We will mutually sort out if any problem comes up ... The fourth meeting of the project steering committee will be held in Dhaka in December."

The Bangladesh delegation was led by its railway ministry's joint secretary Sunil Chandra Pal.

Pal said: "With the setting up of the new railway connectivity between India and Bangladesh, people of two countries will benefit as they will come closer. Men and materials will be ferried very smoothly."

BDST: 1545 HRS, JUN 18, 2014