AGARTALA, April 15 – Two Mumbai-based entrepreneurs have agreed to invest Rs 80 crore for setting up two industrial units – plywood manufacturing and incense stick-making factories at the proposed Bamboo Park. The Park, spreading over 69 acres of land at Bodhjungnagar Industrial Estate, 12 km from the capital town is scheduled to come up by end of this year.

A business delegation of Mumbai had visited the Bodhjungnagar Industrial Estate and took interest in setting up bamboo based units.

Among the other safety measures announced by Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi in his budget on Wednesday are increasing the number of trains to be escorted by RPF/GRP personnel to 3,500 and integration of the RPF helpline with the All-India Passenger Helpline.

As part of the Railways' green initiative, 2,500 coaches will be equipped with bio-toilets, 200 remote stations will be powered by solar energy, solar-lighting systems will be installed at 1,000 manned level crossing gates, and two bio-diesel plants will be commissioned at Raipur and Tondiarpet.

AGARTALA, March 13 – The 52-km gas pineline to feed the Palatana power plant is almost ready and is expected to be tested in the next few weeks, said K Satyanarayana, Asset Manager, ONGC Tripura Asset. Talking to The Assam Tribune here on Tuesday, the Asset Manager said the laying of gas pipeline from Agartala Dome to Palatana passing through Charilam has already been completed. “Now, the flushing of pipeline is going on before final testing”, he said.

AGARTALA: Bird flu has been detected in a government owned poultry farm at Gandhigram, about 18 km from here. Director of Animal Resource department, Manoranjan Sarkar on Saturday said following deaths of poultry in the farm about four days ago, samples were sent to High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal which confirmed the presence of H5N1 virus in the affected birds.

Agartala: Acquiring of land has come in the way of upgrading Agartala airport into an international airport, Tripura Transport minister Manik Dey said the assembly on Thursday.

Replying to a calling attention notice on Upgrading the Agartala airport in the standard of an international airport brought by ruling CPI-M member Padma Debbarma, Dey said the Union Ministry of Aviation has now decided to upgrade the airport into a Air hub.

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.

AGARTALA: The Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) will begin final survey for the proposed rail link between Gangasagar (Bangladesh) and Akhaura, close to Agartala very soon.

Chief Administrative Officer (Construction) of NFR, Mohan Lal who is on a two-day visit to attend a review meeting on rail works in Tripura on Monday told reporters that the survey for 11 kms railways between Gangasagar and Agartala would begin just after allocation of the money in the proposed budget.

AGARTALA:The proposed up-gradation of Agartala airport to an international airstrip has run into rough weather with the dispute over land acquisition for expansion of the runway and other mandatory infrastructure.

Officials here on Saturday said that the state government had been demanding an international airport for the past two years but the Airport Authority of India(AAI) sought land as the state’s contribution.

Agartala: Tripura, which grows 25 varieties of bamboo, is about to make the most of this natural wealth by developing India’s first bamboo park. The idea is to help expand industries based on this produce, also known as green gold.

Industries, Commerce and Forest Minister, Jitendra Chowdhury said the bamboo park would produce hundreds of value-added items and also facilitate export of bamboo products.

AGARTALA: State-owned ONGC is to set up a slew of projects in the nuclear, fertiliser, solar, wind power and lighting sectors, a top company official said Thursday. A gas-fired fertiliser plant would be set up in Tripura, the solar projects in Rajasthan and Gujarat and the wind power project in Rajasthan, while the sites for the nuclear plant and a light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturing unit have yet to be finalised, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) chairman-cum-managing director Sudhir Vasudeva told reporters here