The inland waterways Sonamura-Daudkandi route connecting Tripura to Bangladesh will have its first trial run in September, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said.

The 93-km-long Sonamura-Daudkandi waterway route was included in the list of Indo-Bangla protocol (IBP) routes in May this year.

“.... The trial run is scheduled in the first week of September 2020, during which 50 MT cement will be transported in barges from Dhaka to Sonamura. This is for the first time in history that any kind of goods will be reaching Tripura by ship..,” Deb said in a post on his Facebook page.

The chief minister said the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority has given permission for trial run from Daundkandi in Comilla district of Bangladesh to Sonamura in Tripura’s Sepahijala district, 60 km away from Agartala via River Gomati.

Tripura launched a floating jetty on River Gomati on July 4 as part of the Indo-Bangla international inland waterways connectivity project.

Traders of India and Bangladesh had demanded a trial run of vessels on the Gomati river this month to operationalise the Indo-Bangla protocol route between Sonamura and Daudkandi in the neighbouring country, officials said.

A high-level team of officials of the Bangladesh Shipping Ministry surveyed the riverine protocol route on August 12, Sonamura sub-divisional magistrate Subrata Majumder said.

“Of the 90-km stretch, around 89.5 km is in the neighbouring country. Export-import traders of the two countries proposed a trial run of barges through the protocol route,” he said.

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