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Agartala, Sept. 11: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar called at Rashtrapati Bhavan yesterday and met President Pranab Mukherjee.
A press release issued by the chief minister’s office here termed his visit to Raisina Hills as a “courtesy visit” in the course of which he invited Mukherjee to visit Tripura, which he accepted.
Sarkar also urged the President to do whatever possible within his constitutional jurisdiction to improve relations and connectivity with Bangladesh.
Mukherjee assured Sarkar that he would ensure that Indo-Bangladesh connectivity improved further.
Sarkar who had gone to Delhi to attend a meeting of the CPM politburo, also held a series of meetings with Union ministers and senior officials to sort out issues concerning Tripura in an expeditious manner.
According to the press release, Sarkar met C.P. Joshi, Union minister for road transport and highways, and other officials, including a senior representative of Border Roads Organisation (BRO). He took up cudgels on behalf of the Northeast and urged the minister to upgrade the highway work across Northeast in a coordinated manner.
When Sarkar pointed out that the work on National Highway 44 within Tripura was pending for a long time, the Union minister directed the secretary in the ministry and the director general of BRO to visit the place and monitor the progress of work and expedite the action.
“Joshi also directed the officials to hold monthly meetings for monitoring work as well as to visit states of Northeast to take stock of the progress of work in different states. As part of the plan, both the BRO official and the secretary of the ministry will visit Tripura on September 28,” D.B. Dutta, press secretary in the chief minister’s office, said.
Apart from this, Sarkar also held discussions about the construction of a vital bridge across Deo river to connect Kanchanpur subdivision of North Tripura with the rest of the state, which was pending approval of the BRO.
The Union minister, who presided over the meeting in Delhi yesterday, directed the DG to look into the issue and take action to complete the construction at the earliest.
Sarkar also held a meeting with ONGC chairman Sudhir Basudevan who had called on him last night.
“Basudevan told the chief minister that the first 363MW unit of ONGC’s mega 726MW gas-based power project at Palatana in South Tripura will be commissioned and commence power generation latest by the first week of October. He also told Sarkar that the TATA Chemicals has been shortlisted for launching a fertiliser project in Tripura and the matter will be finalised soon,” Dutta said.
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